The Gideon Factor
by Hmrb0000
Summary: When Gideon is stolen by Norah Darhk and new Head of the Demon, Talia al'Ghul, in an attempt to create an anachronism large enough to free Mollus, the Legends crew call on Nyssa to help get her back. Ava Sharpe, not one to risk the Gideon AI tech in the hands of a Darhk, or ignore the presence of a League member on the Waverider, decides to help out. Updated Regularly :)
1. The Gideon Factor Part One

**The Gideon Factor**

Part One

"Gideon, let's roll."

The six Legends returned to the quiet, cool steel of the bridge having completed another shockingly successful mission. Some would argue, shocking in that it was successful, but the Legends were now confident in their ability to pull through, even when the road less travelled was pretty much the only path they ever chose.

The bridge of the Waverider was a vast, open room with a prominent central computer system and a sleek, futuristic feel. Seven passenger seats formed a semi-circle behind a Captain's chair and elaborate control console. Perhaps the most notable thing about the bridge of the Waverider, at least in the Captain's mind, was the view. Whether approaching a new location, a new time, or traversing space, the huge panes that formed the front of the ship provided a spectacular view, currently the luminescent, swirling green of the temporal zone.

"Where to next, Captain?" Ray addressed the compact, muscular form of the Waverider's leader, Sara Lance. Sara was a bit like the girl-next-door in that she had the blond hair and blue eyes that made grandpas want to lend her a hand at Home Depot, but being a recovering assassin put enough edge on her that it only took a moment to realize she wasn't to be underestimated. Not an ounce of learned helplessness remained in the woman's compact, muscular frame.

"Nate, hit up the library and cross-check that dweeb with the hair and the historical record – a third rate reality TV show host being president has to be an anachronism. Let's see where time broke for that one and get it back on track." Nate, the group's historical detective, that could also quite helpfully transform into a man of steel, headed off to the adjacent library that was stocked with a plethora of reference material, a state of the art computer system, and was a regular gathering place for mission planning.

Sara, Ray, Zari, Mick, and Amaya circled around the central computer on the bridge of the Waverider. "Gideon, do you have any information on why our totems were acting up on that last mission? The animal forces seemed much weaker when I called on the Anansi totem, and I know I saw Mick barely let off a spark with the fire totem. Or were you just drunk on a mission again, Mick?" Amaya addressed the gruff form of Mick Rory.

Attractive in a non-traditional sense with a Viking heritage and the feeling of someone that maybe fought a little too much and enjoyed it, Mick had recently come into possession of a totem that allowed him to control his favorite element, fire. He had a solid face, a nose that had been broken a couple times, and an aloofness that attracted a certain kind of female who wanted to take a crack at fixing him. "Not drunk," he gruffly replied. "This thing's just broken. I knew I should have brought the heat gun."

Nate yelled from the library, "Hey, have you guys been able to get a response from Gideon? I could really use her help sorting the anachronism map for anything that would point to Trump's presidential election."

"Gideon?" Sara, getting slightly annoyed, turned to Zari with an accusing look. "Have you been messing with the computers again? You know Gideon hates it when you try to 'update' her system." Gideon, the Waverider's AI system, had a propensity for feistiness when the hacker turned Air totem bearer crossed the line with her computer expertise. Gideon also served as a voice-activated control system for the entire ship, to include piloting, food fabrication, and research analysis, which was the current root of Nate's frustration.

"Psh. Not since the last time when you freaked out about it. Besides, Gideon and I really bonded when we were stuck in that Groundhog Day situation. You know, I still haven't seen that movie." Nate, who had wandered back from the library, rolled his eyes.

"Zari, head back to the engine room and see what's up," Sara directed.

"Sure, no problem. Maybe the ol' girl needs a reboot," Zari headed down the steel paneled hallway to a door accessed by a six-digit keypad code built into the frame of the sliding door. Zari punched in the code and the vacuum sealed door slid open. The engine room was a long, spacious chamber that housed the guts of the Waverider, along with the two large time drive orbs that allowed the ship to transport the Legends through time and space. It was also where the computer server stacks were located.

Always a little chilled in the engine room, strictly temperature controlled to maintain the environment for the time drive and the servers, Zari briskly rubbed her arms as she traveled down the length of the room. Zari had long, brown hair, a slightly cynical attitude, and a confident way of moving that attested to the difficult time the Legends found her in. Beyond the currently still and silent orbs, Zari arrived at a second keypad that would allow her access to the server stack. She took a moment to think of Jax, as she always did when she utilized the relatively new security measure surrounding the servers, and the time he changed Gideon's settings.

Thinking it hilarious at the end of a long night 'hanging with the boys', the former Legend had adjusted Gideon's characteristics until she had the voice and mannerisms of Christopher Walken. How quickly it went from hilarious to annoying when it doubled the amount of time it took for Gideon to relay information. After the first attack with Christopher Walken's voice narrating the events, Sara and the team were over the drunken prank. Even the youthful Jax could admit that it was good for a quick laugh but didn't vibe with the group long-term. Gideon's voice was returned to its sultry female tenor, complete with a British accent and pleasantly sarcastic attitude. Sara also insisted that a metal casing and keypad security be placed around the computer's central system and the home of Gideon's AI core.

Zari keyed in the code and the instant the metal door retracted, she knew something was wrong. First, it was damp. Never good in relation to computers. "Sara, you're going to want to come down here. Like, now. And bring Ray." Second, the interior compartment that stored Gideon's AI core wasn't sealed. The indicator light next to the compartment was red, which was an irreversible warning that the keypad had been bypassed. She held her breath and gently opened the compartment. "Oh, shit." Her stomach dropped as she realized the softball-sized orb of energy that was Gideon was missing. In its place, a doughnut-shaped metal frisbee with what appeared to be razor-sharp edges. "What in the hell?" she whispered to herself.

Sara and Ray made their way down the corridor in the engine room. "What gives? What's up with Gideon?" Sara asked, as she let her fingers trail along the cool wall as she walked. Her instincts flared with each step. She found the tactile input calmed her a bit, and she had learned over the years that every bit helped. Never fully comfortable around computers after having spent some key years of technological development training with the League of Assassins on Nanda Parbat, Sara already knew there was a serious issue by Zari's furrowed brow and the tense setting to the hacker's usually relaxed vibe. Also, how she bypassed the Captain's gaze and went directly to Ray's brown eyes, set into a classically handsome face with thick, dark hair and a square jaw.

"Hey," Zari addressed Ray, "any chance you recognize this? Or have ever seen the Gideon core… you know, not in the usual place?" Ray was perhaps the only other Legend that Zari trusted with tech and the code to the secondary keypad.

Ray and Sara made it to Zari's crouched location next to the server stack and Ray's mouth dropped as he shook his head, "Uh, no. No, I sure haven't. In fact, it would require one of the totem's to safely transport Gideon. Which could explain the water and the fried security system." The orb of energy that formed Gideon's AI core was stored within a series of six spherical bands that interlocked around the orb. Each band had a keyhole style imprint that would align with one of the six totems. It was a security measure installed by Rip Hunter prior to his departure as Captain of the Waverider. The Legends currently possessed five of the six totems.

Both Ray and Zari turned to Sara, who stood with a clouded rage that hadn't been seen in quite some time. The Captain's distress was obvious in the darkened hue of her eyes and the bunched muscles of her arms that stood in stark relief from under the fitted black T-shirt the Captain favored. "I have. I've killed with that, and there's only one place to find them." Ray and Zari, having not seen this side of their Captain in a bit, held their collective breath. The blonde woman reached forward and removed the sharp, circular object.

"Get everyone to the bridge, now," this thrown over Sara's shoulder as she stalked down the long corridor and passed through the air-locked door, not waiting for a response.

Mick arrived with a beer, in his worn jeans and standard olive utility jacket, to join Nate and Amaya, who debated the hierarchy of the Harry Potter characters, having just finished binge-watching the series. Nate's never-ending quest to get his beautiful lady partner from 1942 up-to-date on the numerous cult classics she had yet to experience was moving along nicely. Partially so she'd catch on to the historian's sometimes obscure references, but also to try and engage her in the culture of 2017. Anything to make returning to her time, and Zambezi, less appealing. And let's face it, a world with Harry Potter was better than a world without.

Nate and Amaya's banter stopped as they saw the tense movements and anxious glances shared between Ray and Zari as they approached the group at the central computer. Somehow, the computer seemed dim and extra quiet to Ray, now that he knew Gideon was missing. Or, by the Captain's reaction and the strange object that replaced Gideon's core, was more likely stolen.

"Uhm, hey guys, where's the Captain?" Ray asked with the obvious hesitation of someone not used to playing it cool. Honest to a fault, Ray tended to speak first in less than ideal situations, and this was most certainly that.

"Haircut, did you fix the computer lady? We're almost out of beer," asked Mick in his typical abrupt manor. Mick had flirted with functional alcoholism since the death of his partner, Leonard Snart, who sacrificed himself on a mission to save the rest of the Legends team about six months ago.

"Uhm, no, see, about that…" Ray began, and was graciously interrupted by a whirring sound, followed by a metallic thump, and a razor-sharp disc sticking out of the steel edge of the central computer station.

"No, because Gideon is gone. I'm pretty sure she was stolen." Always one to cut to the chase, Sara approached her team with a second disc in hand. She held the item up as she stalked forward, brusquely removing the flying disc from the computer station with a familiarity that got Amaya's spidey senses tingling. "This was in her place." Sara gave the nod to Zari and she quickly took over filling in the team on her findings in the engine room.

"So, what does that death disc mean? Where's Gideon? What is that thing?" Nate posed the logical questions to the Captain, who seemed to know a great deal more than she had shared so far.

"That thing is a saghir chakram. It's something I was taught to use when I was with the League, and the children of the League all learn to use at a young age. In fact, when I was last in Nanda Parbat, I taught Talia al Ghul how to use it. It's basically the League's spin on a throwing weapon from India." This was perhaps the most the Legends had ever heard their Captain talk about her dark time with the League, although they all witnessed the struggle Sara experienced to overcome the urge to instinctively kill as a first resort when the Legends were formed.

"So, what does that mean, Captain?" Ray asked, honest, and shockingly brave.

"It means that Talia stole Gideon's core." Surprised and hesitant looks all around. Nate stepped up to the plate this time, "How do you know it was her? How would she even know about the Waverider, or how to find Gideon's core, or about any of this?"

"She had to have had help," Sara replied. Holding up the two discs in her hands, she displayed each of them in turn. Now, getting to inspect them more closely, Zari noticed that they each had finely carved characters engraved in the flat surface of the metal. "What do those symbols mean?" she asked.

Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, the Captain began to explain. "The League never hesitated to dispatch their own style of justice. One way they dissuaded future infractions was to display the crime the individual committed that had marked them for death by the League. So, they would engrave the saghir chakram with the crime, repeated around the flat of the chakram so it would be visible, no matter which portion was embedded in the target." She opened her eyes, darkened with the memory of her training, and met Zari's eyes. "To answer your question, the symbols on the chakram found in Gideon's place mean 'Betrayal' and 'Desertion'. That's how I know Talia stole Gideon. She took her father's place as the Head of the Demon. There's more to it, but trust me, it was her." Nods all around.

"So, with that answered, the real questions become, who helped her, why, and how?" Nate asked.

"How do we get the British lady back?" Mick chimed in, wiping his scruffy face after a long pull on the beer. "And opening that computer thing is easy, I broke into it the first night after Jax put it up, no sweat."

Sara stared into the thief's eyes for a moment, decided the behavior was to be expected, shrugged, and moved on. "Really, there's only one person who knows enough about us, has been on the Waverider, has a totem to safely transport Gideon, and benefits from us being sidelined." Sara stopped there, hoping that her teammates agreed with her analysis of the situation and reached the same conclusion. The Captain was wary of her tendency to personalize issues, and since it seemed as though a dark segment of her past was about to collide with a dark segment of her present, she wanted to be sure.

Nate snapped his fingers, "Norah Darhk!" Sara nodded. Nate continued, "By sidelining us, she only has to worry about the Time Bureau fixing the anachronisms that she needs to bring Mallus into, you know, form," this with a vague gesture of his arms.

With Norah Darhk in mind, the rest of the team easily put the pieces together. "Plus," Zari added, "if she's able to find someone to access the information in Gideon, she would know everything we know. She would know everything anyone knows. Mallus would know everything. Plus, doesn't that bitch have the Water totem now? That would explain the moisture in the compartment."

Amaya, still processing the death of her grand-daughter, Kuasa, who formerly possessed the Water totem, simply nodded.

"Not to mention the whopping anachronism that is sure to be caused by Gideon being stolen, schlepped off to Nanda Parbat, and in the hands of the League of Assassins." Ray, fully realizing the true threat of the situation, cast his gaze toward Sara. "Captain, what do we do? Can we get to Nanda Parbat and steal her back? Why the League of Assassins in the first place?"

"Stealing the British lady from assassins… I'm in." Mick, always ready to sign up for a new heist scenario.

Sara turned and leaned against the computer console, buying her some space to think. As she considered her past with the League, her history with the Darhk family, and the growing strength of Mallus, she began to pace. "Why the League? I mean, Nanda Parbat makes sense because it's remote and would buy them plenty of time to try to hack into Gideon. Not to mention that it's defended by the most elite group of ancient assassins history has ever known. But a good location can't be the only reason, and why tell us who helped her and where they are?"

"You know, Captain," Ray started, "it seems kind of personal. Besides your encounters with Talia as a child, do you two have some kind of sordid past? Something that would make her more than willing to lend a hand?"

Sara halted. "Shit. You're right. They're after me. In the laws of the League, I betrayed the Head of the Demon and abandoned the League. I mean, sure, Ras al Ghul's daughter freed me from my contract, but Talia didn't have any part in that. If she's the new Head of the Demon, she could be trying to avenge her father's name." Something still didn't feel quite right about the reasoning, a simple revenge plot was too basic for someone she remembered being incredibly intelligent, but it was a start. She was the target, at least for Talia al Ghul.

"Okay, we'll figure out the rest of the why as we go along. First, we need a way to get Gideon back. Without Gideon, we need a temporary ship and someone who can help us with the League," Sara said.

"I don't know anything about the League of Assassins, or this Talia chick, or where in the hell Nanda Parbat is, but isn't volunteering your location and your cohort something out of 'Trap-setting 101'?" Zari wasn't even close to convinced that charging in to retrieve Gideon was the best plan, or even a good plan.

"Oh, it's definitely a setup," Mick chimed in.

Sara, startled by the sudden appearance of a portal door on the bridge, quickly turned, chakram raised. She was just able to stop herself from releasing the weapon, the reflex too close to the surface. A side-effect of reconnecting with notions of the League, maybe. A deep breath, she lowered the weapon and rubbed her thumb along the flat of the chakram, tracing the intricate design on the underside of the chakram to calm herself. How quickly the old habits returned, she mused.

A raised eyebrow on the strong, yet feminine face of the newcomer. "What seems to be the problem, Captain Lance?" Sara smirked at the lithe form of the Time Bureau Director, and briefly recalled a time when the formal title was used recreationally. The woman remained serious. Not entirely uncharacteristic for Ava Sharpe, but rather more stern than she'd been the last few visits. "I received a notice that the Waverider was associated with a Level 10 anachronism. I tried to reach your team through comms, but there wasn't a response. Of any kind. What kind of ridiculous shit have you gotten yourselves involved in? Where's Gideon? Why didn't she respond?"

Ava, clad in an obviously government-issued navy-blue pant suit, moved confidently toward the group. Letting her gaze travel across the Legends team, she landed on their leader. As always, she had to make a conscious effort to push back what could only be described as the visceral response she had to the Captain. Based on the tense posture she saw in the teammates surrounding Sara, it was slightly disconcerting to see the now relaxed stance of her lover, who was caressing one of the weapons she bared with an obvious affection, the other lightly tapping against a thigh well-defined by tight denim. Ava met the Captain's gaze.

"Seriously, what in the hell is going on?" she posed the question again.

"Against my better judgment, I'm going to be upfront with you on this one. Only because we all know the strength of Mallus is growing and we're going to need some of your resources to get us running again." Ava took a deep breath and consciously kept her mouth shut, knowing it was a rare occurrence when the Legend's Captain willingly coordinated with the Time Bureau. Ava nodded and tried to look reassuring.

"Gideon was stolen by Talia al Ghul with the help of Norah Darhk and is likely on Nanda Parbat." Sara refused to break eye contact with the Time Bureau Director, as though by the force of will alone, she would be able to keep the tightly wound Director from exploding.

"You're fucking kidding me." Well, Sara thought, that response could have been much worse. "How in the world could you let that happen?! I mean, of all the irresponsible, dumbass things!" _Ah, there we go_ , she thought, as she felt her own temper ignite to her team's defense.

Sara immediately lost her relaxed stance. She knew she would lose control in defense of her team, "Maybe I could speak to you privately for a moment, Director Sharpe?" she ground out between clinched teeth. Not waiting for a response, the Captain set the weapons on the computer console, turned on a dime, and stalked down the hallway. She headed directly for the storage room, entered, and remained facing away from the door, sleek muscles bunched across her shoulders.

As she heard Ava enter behind her, Sara took an even breath, consciously relaxed her stance, and turned to face the slightly taller woman as the door slid shut. "Before you get rolling," Sara started smoothly, "we didn't do anything wrong. We were out on a mission, we got back, she was gone." Sara met Ava's deep blue eyes confidently. She continued, "We both know Norah Darhk's capabilities, and with Mallus' power growing, they're only getting more honed in. So, don't barge onto this ship, my ship, and yell at us like we've fucked up. You know that drives me crazy and it makes the team think you're an ass." With the defense of her crew finished, Sara took a couple steps back and hopped up to sit on the metal storage containers. "Plus, I'm going to need your help," this with the hint of a smirk.

Ava, a little surprised at how easy the request for help came from the blonde woman, nodded. "Okay, but first I have a couple of questions," she paused and received a nod to continue. "Why didn't you contact me? I know you have a cloned Time Bureau comms device. How do you plan on getting Gideon back? Why shouldn't I take over this entire situation and just send a Time Bureau crew straight to Nanda Parbat to get it back?"

"Her." Sara stated. "Gideon is a her, not an it." Ava rolled her eyes and moved to stand between her lover's strong calves that hung off the containers. "As for your other questions, the team and I just hashed out the situation before you barged in," she pulled Ava closer and hooked her ankles behind her to take the sting out of the words. "I have an old contact from the League. I can get in touch with her and I think she'd be willing to help us navigate Nanda Parbat and deal with Talia al Ghul. The League of Assassins would demolish any Time Bureau team that you sent. We need stealth on this one, and while I know that's not a typical Legends trait, my contact is an expert." Ava quirked an eyebrow at the Captain's tone and made a note to get more information on this 'contact' later. "Plus, Norah bringing in Talia, the message with the chakram, Nanda Parbat – it's all directed at me, and I have no intention of your agents getting hurt for some vengeance trap those bitches set for me."

"Okay, I'm willing to go along for now. On one condition." A victory without argument was rare for the Waverider's Captain, so she nodded and hoped the request was something she was willing to adhere to. "I'm working with you. If your plan fails and Talia and Norah Darhk access Gideon's intel or develop tech based off her code, we're all absolutely screwed. Mallus would be released for sure and we're not ready for that yet."

Sara looked down and unhooked her ankles. The Time Bureau Director took a step back, slightly hurt as she felt it was a reasonable request. Besides, she thought they'd worked well together lately. Sara slid down and took a few steps before answering. "You're absolutely right. Of course, you can work with us. In fact, I need you." Sara made eye contact with Ava, realized how her hesitation was received, and quickly stepped over and took the Director's hands. "Listen, it's just that I'll be visiting a really dark time in my past. And someone from my past. It's just hard to let you see that again."

"Okay," Ava, knowing there was more to it, decided it was a discussion for another time. Knowing every moment Gideon was in Norah Darhk's possession was a risk, she quickly kissed the blonde's hands and released them. "So, where do we start?"

"It'll be better if I only have to run through this once. Let's get back to the crew and I'll explain what I've come up with so far." With Ava's nod, Sara turned and started back toward her team. "Oh," she started nonchalantly as they walked, "and we're going to need to borrow a ship." A faltered step quickly recovered by the Time Bureau Director. As much as she cared for the Waverider's Captain, she was borderline insane with her handling of spacecraft. A brief flashback of the Captain careening full speed in the Waverider toward the much larger Time Bureau craft caused the Time Bureau Director to shake her head and sigh.

"Of course you are," she replied. Maybe she'd falsify the Time Bureau paperwork.


	2. The Gideon Factor Part Two

**The Gideon Factor**

Part Two

Back with the crew, Sara rolled her eyes when she realized her team, instead of worrying about the absence of Gideon, or trying to come up with a plan, or really doing anything useful, were deep into a round of 'fuck, marry, kill' with _Avengers_ characters.

"What about you, Captain?" Mick tossed it to the blonde as she approached.

"Come on, guys, we need to come up with a plan to sneak on to Nanda Parbat and steal Gideon back." Sara glanced at Ava, "You know we don't have time for this nonsense." She glanced back at her crew, quickly, under her breath, "Fuck the Black Widow, marry Iron Man, kill Captain America." As Nate prepared to argue, Sara quickly gave him a stern look and he zipped his lips. 'Later' he mouthed at her.

"Okay," Sara began, "First, I have a contact that I think can help us out with Nanda Parbat. I spent a few years there, but it's been awhile. Plus, she was raised there, so she knows everything about the island itself. I really wish we had Gideon, I'm not entirely sure how to find her." Ava, eyebrows raised, wondered how many people could claim to have been raised on Nanda Parbat in the League of Assassins. This 'contact' was becoming more and more interesting.

Ray asked, "You don't have some kind of Assassin's bat signal? A call to arms or something?"

"Uhm, we used to. It didn't work out the last time I tried it though," she replied, thinking back to a particularly lonely time she experienced prior to joining the Legends. "I was honestly kind of surprised it didn't work, we've never had a hard time finding each other when we needed to." Although the dark-haired woman frequently went off the grid for long missions, she had always responded before. Even if it meant showing up in the middle of the street, late at night, completely unexpectedly. As torn as she was to see her that night, something about the taste of the assassin's lips and low rumble of her smooth voice reminded her why she stayed with the League for so long.

"What's her name?" Amaya asked. "Maybe Ava can run her through the Time Bureau system and get a location." Sara nodded, hesitantly, and turned to her current lover, trying desperately to shake the images of the former. It wasn't that she hadn't moved on, but the relationship had been filled with challenges, strife, and a desperate passion that felt like looking into the sun. So, of course, the afterimage would leave an impact.

Sara didn't really expect the crew or Ava to know who she was, although the 'al Ghul' would certainly not be lost on anyone. Plus, she was fairly certain the Time Bureau didn't know who had actually found Sara, lost and broken, in Lian Yu. "Her name is Nyssa al Ghul, but she may be in your system as Nyssa Raatko." To Sara's surprise, Ava's eyes immediately narrowed, her face hardened.

"No way," she said, all Time Bureau Director now. Sara racked her brain for what information the Time Bureau could have on Nyssa. She was almost positive the League routinely wiped all traces of their senior members, and the former heir to the throne was certainly protected.

"What's the problem?" Mick started, "Did she kill one of your time dweebs?" Zari elbowed the man in ribs. She had recently been working with Mick on tact. He was as bad a student at tact as he was with his Fire totem, maybe worse. Though, Zari figured that was to be expected, since a severe lack of tact had likely been an issue for over 30 years.

"No, but she's definitely in a Time Bureau holding facility." Sara's heart dropped, still instinctively bound to protect her former lover and the woman who saved her life all those years ago. Not to mention how Nyssa secured Sara's freedom from the League. Sara could see the fire in the dark blue hue of Ava's eyes and knew her plan was in trouble. The blonde pushed off from the computer console and moved to stand staring out of the front of the ship into the temporal void of time and space.

"Why's she locked up, Director?" asked Ray, concerned eyes followed the path of his Captain.

"For some reason, in December 2015, Nyssa al Ghul came out of hiding and the League stopped covering her tracks in the timeline. We saw more activity from Nyssa alone than we had ever seen from the League in such a condensed period." Ava started slowly pacing, keeping an eye on the blonde woman's reaction. There was obviously more to her lover's connection with the known assassin, but it was difficult to get a read.

Sara slowly sank down into a crouch, tightly muscled forearms rested on her knees. Her heart ached for the pain she knew the mysterious and beautiful assassin felt after her beloved's death. She gazed into the abyss, the words rolling over her. For a moment, Sara was lost in the dark recesses of her mind as she recalled laying, cold and fractured, in Lian Yu. She barely had any recollection of when the dark-haired woman found her. As she healed, she remembered studying the stoic visage of the killer. How minute shifts in her expression would speak volumes as Sara worked to break through the tough exterior of the woman. It was such a victory the first time Nyssa had volunteered a story about herself. Sara thought about how hard she focused to overcome the fever chills enough to listen.

"I thought you said the League covered their tracks, how could you tell?" asked Amaya.

Ava nodded, "True, but they also had a unique signature in the timeline. Almost like tracer rounds. You wouldn't see the bullet, but you could pick up on the streak and the ripple effect caused by their activity. Since the League played a historically accurate role in time, we didn't really worry about what they were doing." The edge came back into Ava's voice as she continued, "Until Nyssa al Ghul decided to seriously fuck up the timeline. Repeatedly."

At that, Sara stood and moved behind her Captain's chair. As though the steel frame of the chair would protect her from the story of her former lover's grief. She could picture the look of loss in the exotic dark eyes. Sara knew she had caused that look more than once in the assassin's strong, angular face. She knew she was the only one that could and still be welcomed back by the former heir to the demon. Sara was snapped back to the present as Ava continued.

"On a mission, Nyssa mortally injured a young girl who wasn't supposed to be there. Well, who she thought wasn't supposed to be there. Nyssa whisked the girl away, off the grid, probably to Nanda Parbat." Lazarus Pit, Sara immediately thought. Of course she saved her. "Then, a couple months later, a huge anachronism appeared in the timeline starting in 2026 that would become cataclysmic in 2212. See, what Nyssa didn't realize was that she was supposed to kill the girl on that mission."

"So," Sara began as she stalked back to the group, "Nyssa is in some Time Bureau jail because she saved a girl? That doesn't make any sense. We need her to get Gideon back." Ava noticed the pronounced swagger in her frustrated partner's walk and took a deep breath.

"Look, we fixed the anachronism multiple times. Putting Nyssa in the holding facility was a last resort. She repeatedly found a way to save the girl. The anachronism is a world-killer. It's too great to risk. So, Nyssa al Ghul will be locked up until the time has passed and she can no longer interfere." Ava could tell this was going to be a big problem by the furious look on the younger woman's face. "Maybe I could let you in to talk to her and she could tell you what you need to know about Nanda Parbat," she suggested.

"Oh, a compromise, that's a nice idea," Ray offered helpfully, knowing in the glare he received from the Captain and the nudge from Nate that he had once again crossed the optimism threshold.

"Ava, you don't understand. Let's forget for a second that having someone imprisoned for saving a girl is ridiculous, no matter the consequence in the timeline, and focus on the Gideon factor." Sara began pacing again, her hand motions enhanced by the sound of her black, combat style ankle boots as she moved across the floor. "I don't think you understand Nanda Parbat. The island is like a fortress. There are traps and security measures everywhere. There will be rotating guard stations manned by trained killers. There are also secret passageways onto the island that only the senior members know about."

Mick interrupted, "Then how do you know about them, Captain?" Always very helpful, Mick Rory.

Sara shot daggers his way, "I know of them, not where they are specifically. Plus, they're rigged with booby traps as well, from what I hear," she added.

"So, what you're saying is," Zari, always one to put things in perspective, "we're fucked." The lithe woman dropped her arms and moved to take a place on the steps leading up to the library. She extended her long legs, clad in fitted black jeans, crossed them at the ankles, and leaned back to watch the conflict between her Captain and the Director continue to unfold.

"No, what I'm saying is we need Nyssa's help. It's the only way we stand a chance to get Gideon back, keep the AI tech out of Norah Darhk's hands, stop the ginormous anachronism that's in the works, and avoid the murderous rampage that would result from a Mallus infested League of Assassins." Sara stopped abruptly. She made eye contact with Ava, who had a well-defined scowl on her face. "You said you'd go along with my plan. That you wanted to work with us. This is the beginning of the plan." Sara stood, one fist on her hip, faced off against the Director.

"Sara, I can't." Ava's face was set, despite the look of regret in her dark blue eyes.

"Then just fucking go. I'll let you know if there's a facet to our plan that requires your textbook touch." Sara saw the hit land as hurt and anger replaced regret in the Director's gaze. Ava lifted her chin and set her shoulders, the poly-blend fabric taut across her back. She stalked past the shorter blonde woman, through the portal that had appeared at the touch of a device on woman's wrist, and returned to the Time Bureau.

"Now what, Captain?" Nate asked, hesitantly.

Sara took a second to bleed off the anger and disappointment she felt toward the Director in that moment. She also spared a second to reflect on how close to the surface her temper lived as she immediately regretted the pain she knew her words caused. John Constantine may have restored her soul, but she'd always live with a certain level of darkness about her now, beyond what she'd acquired as a member of the League. She lightly slapped her well-defined thigh a couple times to refocus, took a breath, and looked at her team. She knew it was going to be much harder with Ava's unwillingness to let Nyssa out, but that didn't change the fact that they needed her former lover's help.

"Alright, Team." She moved toward them with cool confidence, making a point to meet each member's gaze. "First things first, apparently we need to break Nyssa al Ghul out of Time Bureau prison."


	3. The Gideon Factor Part Three

**The Gideon Factor**

Part Three

"Okay, Mick," Sara started, "how do we do this? We need a plan. Or at least most of a plan." The Legends were sprawled in plush leather chairs around the Library, most with a drink of some sort. While the relaxed nature of the group would concern most leaders, Sara knew this was the best way for her team to sync into a strategy. She herself was splayed sideways across an overstuffed, light brown leather chair, with her legs over the arm of the chair, socked feet lightly swinging. She swirled a glass of Macallan scotch and thought it may be her favorite. For some reason, she found that she really liked the way the name sounded, and the smooth taste of the golden drink as she rolled it in her mouth. Besides, while Mick tended to avoid participation in the planning phases, when it came to prison breaks, heists, or arson, he was dynamite, bordering on genius, after about four beers.

She laid her head back on the opposite arm of the chair, her long hair almost to the floor, so she could look over her shoulder in the man's direction. Mick leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and took a swig from the glass bottle. He glanced at the Captain and she could see something click in the man's hazel eyes. She raised an eyebrow. Mick nodded. Sara relaxed back into her chair and sipped her scotch. He had a plan.

Mick lifted his bulky form out of the seat with surprising smoothness. He killed the beer and moved to lean on the circular table in the center of the room. "Okay, first, we need the time dweeb."

"Gary," Ray pitched in.

"Right, the time dweeb, that's what I said," Mick replied. "He's going to get us a badge and pass codes to wherever they're keeping the black widow lady."

"I like where your head's at, Big Guy, but why would Gary help us?" Nate asked.

Mick made eye contact with Zari, who laughed softly to herself, shrugged, and nodded. "I think I can come up with a couple things to… encourage him to lend a hand," she replied helpfully. "I should also be able to hack into the Time Bureau system and grab guard schedules and blueprints." Mick quirked his lips, mind already coming up with helpful ways to blackmail the nerd, and he knew for certain the hacker would be on board. Zari was perhaps the only Legend that shared his twisted sense of humor, though the Captain had a way about her that the large man appreciated.

Mick growled in approval and cast his attention back to the Captain. "I'll check out the blueprints, Boss, but it should be a piece of cake to get your lady friend out." Sara tossed her empty glass towards the gruff man, which he deftly caught. "It's not like that," she said. "She saved me on Lian Yu. We have… history." With that, Sara swung her legs around and stood. Her crew glanced at each other with hesitant looks, hoping to get more on this phase of their Captain's past that she had always refused to talk about.

"Okay, Z, you do your thing. Please try to avoid hurting Gary too much. Oh, and try to stay in the Time Bureau system in case we need a diversion once we're in there. Mick, check out the blueprints and see what you think. Let's keep the plan simple and flexible. I have an errand to run first thing in the morning, we'll go get Nyssa tomorrow afternoon." Sara turned and headed toward the hallway that would lead to the Captain's quarters.

"Where are you going in the morning, Captain?" Ray asked after her.

"I'm going to get us a ship," she replied. _And fix things with my girlfriend,_ she thought to herself.

Sara made her way down the predominantly steel hallway toward her room, a little surprised by how the vessel somehow felt colder without Gideon's presence. She examined the protective steel pipes that ran along the ceiling and thought about the vulnerable fibers that spread throughout the ship. It was interesting how many similarities the ship had with it's human crew. She thought of her own structure, a muscular, strong, compact form created to protect her own vulnerable fibers and sense of consciousness. A consciousness that often took a morose and reflective turn after the third glass of scotch. "Fuck, snap out of it," she muttered to herself as she reached her Captain's quarters.

It had taken Sara awhile to settle in to the Captain's quarters once she finally accepted her placement in the position. A moderate sized room with a queen-size bed, a loveseat, and an overstuffed chair made of soft, light gray leather. While the library and study were furnished with shades of brown in an attempt to soften the metal ship, Sara had decided to embrace it. She liked the edge it gave her environment, and instead used blue accents to compliment the steel.

The room was decorated with a few family photos on the shelving unit next to the loveseat, as well as on the nightstands on either side of the bed. On the walls, she had a couple of woven reed mats that she'd had Gideon fabricate, but she herself had painted in hues of blue, copper, and white. One night, after a particularly difficult day facing her demons, she remembered how much she had loved to paint when she was younger. When she was normal. It effectively helped her keep the demons at bay, _for the moment anyway,_ and as she looked at the woven mats, she found they were still able to soothe her.

She entered her quarters, reached into a storage space under the shelving unit, and pulled out a small box. Sara curled up in the corner of the loveseat and closed her eyes for a moment before she opened it. Inside, under a folded silk sash, was another photograph. On this one, the only of its kind, were two smiling faces looking back. "Holy shit, she's beautiful." Sara was always a little shocked at how the deep-set brown eyes were always able to affect her.

The eyes were framed by an exotic and angular face, slightly wider than standard measurements of beauty, and long, dark brown hair with loose curls throughout. In the photo, Nyssa's usually stoic face was caught in a full, heartfelt smile, with copper highlights exposed by sunlight in her dark hair. On her black denim clad lap sat Sara, laughing, with her arms wrapped around the broad shoulders of her then partner. Nyssa was clad in a fitted white t-shirt that contrasted nicely with her darker, tanned skin. Sara was in a thin, long-sleeved red shirt and her eyes were crystal blue in the sunlight.

She recalled the photo had been taken during one of their first missions together, one of the first appearances of Ta-er al-Sahfer, the Canary. Sara was unable to decide if she couldn't remember the target, or if she chose not to, but either way, her recollection of the time was perfectly summed up by their happy, loving faces in the photograph. It was interesting in hindsight, how the end of a person's life at her hand was far overshadowed by the passion she had felt for the dark-haired woman. "And now I'm forcing myself back into her life. How many times is she going to let me hurt her?" Sara wondered aloud.

Of course the Captain's feelings for Nyssa were complex. She was her first love and it was built during a time when every moment of every day was life or death. That kind of love, like the love between soldiers returning from war, transcended normal relationships. Not that she would consider the relationship she was building with Ava to be normal by any stretch of the imagination, but there would always be a connection there. Sara accepted long ago that she would always try to protect Nyssa al Ghul. _From anything but myself, apparently._ She was nervous and unsure how the woman would react when she showed up to break Nyssa out. But, the blonde woman's willingness to put the greater good before her own personal status was slowly becoming second-nature.

Sara tucked the picture back under the silk sash and returned the box to its original place. As she stood, she met the smirking dark-blue eyes of her current lover and smiled in response. Even though the relationship was fairly new, Sara knew there was something serious developing. "Hell, I even made it through that Roman-era party without fucking someone… that's gotta mean something," the blonde woman laughed at herself, acknowledging her uninhibited self-confidence that sometimes encouraged her to explore sexuality throughout time. But, sexuality aside, Sara's relationship with the older woman had developed from a bone-deep animosity that morphed into absolute respect, and then became something undeniably emotional and real.

"If we can get through this fiasco without killing each other, I think we'll be solid," she commented aloud, fully aware that she was going to have to do a bit of lying to the Time Bureau Director, and really hoped that Ava could delineate the two roles she played in the Captain of the Waverider's life. _We'll see what happens tomorrow, I suppose,_ she thought as she slid into her large bed and surrounded herself with an inordinate number of pillows.

As the Captain found herself ruminating as she mentally prepared for the emotional rollercoaster she was to experience for the foreseeable future, Zari was bathed in the fluorescent glow of her laptop screen, still curled up in the Library. Behind her, Nate and Mick directed a game of 'Never-Have-I-Ever'. Based on the completely different backgrounds Rip found the two men in, there was quite a bit of drinking. Since Zari was occupied with actual work, the two men would guess whether Zari had done the task at hand and were sure to keep her glass filled with red wine.

Most hackers had a ritual when performing their trade, and Zari was no exception. She insisted on wearing a tight, black tank top that exposed a well-defined collar bone and feminine shoulders, with baggy grey sweats that she had stolen from Mick's room her second day on the ship. Plus, she drank red wine, and typically quite a bit of it. This facet of her ritual was much easier to accomplish on the Waverider than it had been in the 2042 police-state the Legends found her in. Her apocalyptic era also explained the simplistic nature of her ritual. She used to listen to a cassette tape of an underground Saudi Arabian black metal band called Al-Namrood, but her Walkman was confiscated the last time she was picked up by ARGUS in 2042.

Zari worked her way through the code of the Time Bureau network, sophisticated, but manageable for someone both as skilled as she was, and from a future time period. "Hey, Z, have you ever been to one of those human buffets?" Nate asked. "You know, where they serve sushi or something on sexy, naked people?"

Zari stopped typing and glanced at the historian. "What about the place you found me in, where our food was rationed, and I was constantly on the run from authoritarian crazy people, makes you think I'd have had the opportunity to go to a party that had a human buffet?" She scoffed and returned to her work.

The fit man shrugged and took a drink. "Damn. I thought you went to that Roman thing we did awhile back. To be perfectly honest, I may have ended up way more drunk then I intended by the end of that mission. Roman wine is legit," he said.

"Lightweight," Mick offered. "You missed the boss trying not to give in to that gladiator couple that kept trying to take her for a 'Roman experience'," he added. "I thought she was going to lose it. She must be down for that pant-suit lady. She's hot for a government type, I get it." Mick shrugged and headed off to grab another beer.

Zari set her laptop on a side table and stretched her lean, well-defined arms overhead. "Okay, we're in the system. I've already downloaded the blueprints and schedules, we just need to decide what to do about Gary. Want to go grab Sara?" the woman asked as she unfolded herself from the chair, stood and stretched her legs. Zari killed her glass of wine and tipped the empty glass in Nate's direction, eyebrow raised. The well-groomed time detective hopped out of his chair to follow the woman to the galley for another drink.

Nate had a boyish charm about him and was above average height, but not necessarily tall. He had broad, built shoulders, and it was obvious that his routine sparring sessions were supplemented with some extra time in the gym "getting jacked" as he was known to say. The crew regularly made fun of the man for the length of his morning routine, particularly the amount of time he spent grooming his relatively short brown hair. In conjunction with being able to turn to steel, the time detective had a photographic memory and an analytical mind that were invaluable to the Legends crew.

As they traveled down the opposite hallway from the Captain and crew quarters toward the Galley, Nate snapped his fingers and turned toward the lithe woman. "Let's get Gary tonight!" he suggested excitedly and received a skeptical look from the hacker. "How stoked would the Captain be if everything was set up for us to make the jailbreak when she got back tomorrow?" The two Legends entered the galley and found Mick leaned back with his booted feet kicked up on the round, steel-topped table in the center of the room.

Zari abruptly knocked the big man's feet off as she went to the fabrication station and pressed a series of buttons in an attempt to order more wine from the machine. "This stuff is so much easier when Gideon is here," she grumbled as the system was typically voice-activated through Gideon's interface.

"Mick, you'll be on my side," Nate began his argument. "Let's get Gary tonight. Z, you can plant the blackmail stuff that I'm sure you and Mick have a million dastardly ideas for, and then we can call him with the comms unit that the Captain had Ray clone last week."

Mick grunted in response, hit the beer bottle, and shrugged. "Then we could rough him up a little if we need to," the fighter suggested. Nate and Zari made eye contact and Nate replied, "Uhm, big guy, I don't think that's a great idea. I think we'll be able to get him to agree without beating him up."

"But its an option," the man gruffly replied.

"Uh, sure, yeah, its an option I suppose," Nate finished as he snagged a grape Faygo from the fridge. "What do you say? This is an easy one, come on! It's Gary we're talking about, we can handle it."

Zari sighed as she clearly recalled several times she had been roped into one of Nate's quests to make the Captain proud. The majority of which went horribly wrong and ended in being scolded by Sara, something it took the independent hacker a few tries to get used to, and not just storm off. After her brother was killed and she was separated from her family, Zari only had herself to deal with. Coming to live on a ship with a horde of people was an adjustment, to say the least, and her independent nature had routinely clashed with Sara's sometimes abrasive leadership style. Now, she appreciated that she always knew where she stood with the crew's leader and genuinely enjoyed the blonde woman's company. Plus, a former assassin without super powers who was strong enough to lead the Legends, that's just badass.

"Okay, fuck it, I'm in. Let me grab my laptop. We better do this shit in the Cargo Bay so we don't wake the Captain. Meet you guys there." Zari sighed, sometimes it was trying to follow the Captain's example that got her in trouble to begin with, she mused. Nate pumped his fist in the air and Mick grabbed the rest of the six-pack to bring on the adventure.


	4. The Gideon Factor Part Four

**The Gideon Factor**

Part Four

First, Zari thought, they had to decide how far to go with Gary. Despite all the shit the Legends gave the Time Bureau employee, he was a genuinely good guy and Zari didn't want to cause any permanent damage. She was fairly certain that he would go along with the plan because even though his job would be in jeopardy, he'd been all-in with the last couple of adventures he'd helped with, and really, he owed the Legends crew for dealing with the Ava clone situation. Plus, she had access to his work computer and planned to make it impossible for him to say no. _Nothing a little light blackmail can't handle._

In the Cargo Bay, a series of glass, cylindrical display cases spanned the length of one wall. In the cases were the suits worn by the Legends when they went on combat-related missions. Ray's exosuit, Sara's Canary suit, Nate's Citizen Steel suit, and a display area for an assortment of weapons that both Sara, as a former assassin, and Nate, as a historian, had collected during missions. In Zari's opinion, it was getting out of control, but the two had admittedly collected some pretty gnarly equipment.

Nate had set out three of the green and blue striped beach chairs that were stored in the Cargo Bay following Mick's Aruba beach trip. Zari crossed the room to the vacant chair and gingerly lowered herself down, her laptop in one hand and her wine glass in the other. She felt ridiculous sitting in the woven chair on the high-tech time travelling ship, but figured it was better than being propped up on one of the metal storage containers. Zari kicked out her sweatpants clad legs and got settled.

"Okay," the woman began, "I'm already in the Time Bureau system and I've located Gary's work computer. I've also used an email he sent to his personal address to grab his home network IP address. His personal network has surprisingly good security, so it'll take me a couple minutes to gain access there." Zari sipped her wine and glanced at the two men, Mick in black sweatpants and an oversized gray hoodie, Nate in navy blue basketball shorts and a white T-shirt. Neither paid much attention and, instead, tossed a hard, rubber ball back and forth.

Mick tossed the ball and simply said, "Porn." As though the word were a fully-developed suggestion. Oddly enough, and to the slight chagrin of the hacker, the suggestion made perfect sense.

"Yeah, okay," she said. "How about I plant a hidden file of hentai porn in his work computer that I can release to the Time Bureau message board with a trigger command?"

"Yes!" Nate cheered, though Zari wasn't sure if it was in response to the idea or because he made a diving save with the ball. She decided the exclamation applied to both and got to work on her laptop. The process was easy as she zipped a file of animated porn that took her approximately five seconds to locate on the internet. She hid the file, set the trigger command, and returned to the man's personal network.

She was impressed by the layered security and her estimation of the 'Time dweeb' jumped a notch. She even encountered an imbedded warning system that she was certain the man had coded himself, based on the cleverly concealed appearance of ' va $harp3 1s my Qu33n' in the complex code. It took her a bit, and she finished off the glass of wine as she let one of her own, personally coded executables work its magic. Finally, she was able to access and explore the man's personal computer.

"Okay, let's see," she mumbled to herself as she clicked through the normal findings and files one would expect on a personal computer. Zari did take a moment to flip through the content of a shockingly funny memes folder and made a mental note to compliment him on his varied collection. _Solid code and signs of a sense of humor,_ she mused. She found herself starting to wonder if there wasn't a relatable human beneath the thick coating of awkwardness Gary was shrouded in.

Then she found the perfect thing. It didn't go too far but was something she was sure the Time Bureau employee would care about greatly. After a few clicks that allowed her to place a virus associated to the application, Zari was satisfied they had enough to convince Gary to go along with their plan.

Zari closed her laptop and quickly realized as she stood that she'd been drinking for hours now. She leaned against the metal container closest to her, letting the cool steel on her bare forearm stabilize her and glanced at her companions, who were also relatively drunk at this point. For a moment, she considered putting off the Gary grab until the following day, but her standard red wine drunk response came to mind, "Fuck it." Some of her best and worst decisions came after a bottle of red wine.

As Nate made the next pass, Zari smacked the ball out of the air. "Alright, guys, you're up."

Nate reached behind his lawn chair and grabbed an off-white, rectangular device that looked like a large cell phone from the early 90's. The communications device had a series of gray buttons with letters and numbers on them, plus a small screen that took up the top half of the device that would allow the user to see who they were talking to. It worked much like a portable Skype machine. Nate had always wondered why the Time Bureau didn't simply issue cell phones to its employees, but he knew it operated on a closed system and figured something extra was required for the device to work through both time and space.

Thankfully, Ray was able to clone the device and the Legends were now able to access the Time Bureau's communications network. "I had Ray program this thing so that it would route our call through Ava's device to mask us. That way, we know he'll answer." Nate keyed in the number and code for Gary and waited, a smirk on his face as he knew 'Girls' by Beyoncé played on the receiving end.

Gary's face appeared on the Legends' comms unit after only two rings. Groggy and confused, the thin-faced man fumbled to fix his thick-framed glasses and peered into the screen to find Nate's gaze staring back at him. "Wha-wha-What in the world?" Gary faltered. "You're not supposed to have access to this network! How did you get my code? What is going on?!" Gary squinted into the bright light his device emitted to illuminate his face, the room dark behind him. Then, to the surprise of the three Legends, a woman's face could be seen in the background.

"Gary, honey, who is it? It's late and you know I can't sleep without you," the mystery female said. The crew looked at each other in shock. Suddenly, all three of the teammate's faces were visible to the Time Bureau employee, as each strained to get a look at the woman clearly in the dweeb's bed. Helpfully, the woman leaned closer to the thin man and into the light of the device.

"She's hot," offered Mick, helpfully. Zari pushed the large man's head out of the way to get a better look. "Holy Hell," she whispered. In the corner of the screen, to everyone's surprise, was the face of a beautiful blonde woman who had a real Captain Marvel look about her. Slightly elfin features with long hair, shaved on one side, and full lips currently set in a pout.

"It's just work, Sugarfoot, you go back to sleep. I'll be back in just a minute," he offered over his shoulder. "Sugarfoot?!" Nate commented, to receive a scowl from the employee. The blonde woman leaned forward to kiss the man's cheek and went back to bed as Gary stood and moved to an adjoining room. "Now, what do you guys want?! It's the middle of the night!" Gary repeated his earlier question, and the Legends could clearly see the man open the fridge and remove a carton of almond milk, taking a drink straight from the container.

"This will be easier if you come over here," Zari offered. "In fact, come here now. We need you to do something for us and it's best if we don't talk about it over comms," she stated sternly. "And before you say no, I have a virus attached to your WoW character application."

The man's face dropped. "You wouldn't."

"I don't want to do that to you, Gary. I can clearly see how much love and time you've put into crafting the strong and gallant Thor. So, just hop on over here, we're in the Cargo Bay. It won't take long, and then you can get back to… Sugarfoot." Gary replaced the carton and closed the fridge. He nodded, terminated the comms session, and a portal appeared in the Cargo Bay seconds later. The Legends could briefly see into the Time Bureau employee's kitchen, a large and modern style with a white marble-topped island behind the man, and the mystery of Gary the Time dweeb continued to grow.

Gary stepped through the portal, pushed a button on his watch, and the portal closed behind him. He took a moment to glance around the Cargo Bay, noted the beach chairs and scoffed. "This feels like a real off-the-books kind of operation. Where's Sara? What do you guys want with me?" Gary asked as he started to fidget slightly.

Gary was slightly taller than average, with a narrow, but not unattractive face. He had dark eyes and short, dark hair that was currently quite unruly due to late hour. While the Legends were used to seeing the Time Bureau employee in his government-issued navy-blue suit, he was currently clad in silk pajamas with gray and blue vertical stripes, buttons up the front of the long-sleeved shirt, and loafer-styled slippers. Zari took in the man's appearance and realized that, combined with the information she'd recently realized about the dweeb, he wasn't entirely unappealing. In fact, for a certain kind of woman, he could be considered a good catch even. A type of woman very different than herself, but still, she kind of liked the guy and was glad he had a shockingly hot woman in his bed.

"First of all," Nate began, "this is our operation. Sara's not available. We need you to do a couple things for us." Gary fiddled with the hem of his pajama top with one hand and raised the other in an awkward gesture.

"I mean, Director Sharpe briefed us on the woman you want to free to help with Gideon, and while it's incredibly unfortunate that your AI was stolen, the Time Bureau has every intention of retrieving her on your behalf. We have the situation mostly under control, and I'm sure that Director Sharpe will contact you with any assistance we may require from your particular set of… skills," he concluded, proud of himself for the steadiness in his voice. "So, again, I'm not entirely sure what I can do to help with… whatever this is."

"Look," Zari started firmly as she slowly advanced on the slight man. "Even if your team, by the grace of Allah, were able to get to Gideon's location on Nanda Parbat, you wouldn't be able to touch Gideon's AI core without one of the totems." Gary looked perplexed and Zari continued. "Gideon is maintained in a spherical brace of sorts that requires one of the six totems to be able to transport her without, well, disintegrating. Norah Darhk was able to transport Gideon because she had access to the Water totem. As far as I know, the Time Bureau has access to zero totems," she took another step in Gary's direction and the man slowly moved back, his legs bumping into one of the beach chairs.

"Which means," Nate picked up the thread, "that your team would have to develop a transport to replace the totem or ask us for help anyway."

"So, unless you want me to annihilate Thor the Noble, or sic Mick on you," Zari gestured with her thumb over her shoulder and sensed the large man take a step forward, "then I suggest you reconsider helping us out." With that, she backed away and the thin man scrunched his face in deliberation.

"The Captain would have let me at him by now," Mick grumbled and stepped toward the smaller man. Gary instinctively took another step back and abruptly found himself in the beach chair, surrounded by three rather imposing Legends looking down at him. "O-o-okay," he stuttered, "what do you need me to do?"

Nate walked a few steps to his Faygo and Jack, which he claimed tasted like a grape tootsie roll, though why that would be a selling point, Zari wasn't sure. "We need a badge and access codes to the East Wing of the Time Bureau office," Nate stated calmly, despite the crestfallen look on the man's face.

"Oh no," he whined, "you are going to try to break her out! Oh, the Director is going to be so pissed! I can't. It's too much, she'll kill me! Or even worse, she'll hate me!" The Time Bureau employee's love for the Director was widely known, even to Ava herself, but he was harmless about it and so it was overlooked as just another Gary quirk. "You don't understand, Nyssa al Ghul broke the timeline repeatedly and the Director freaked out more than normal. There's something about the anachronism that she takes very personally, and I haven't figured out what it is yet. I can't be responsible for that." Despite his meek tone in that moment, his face showed strong resolve.

Mick killed another beer, dropped the bottle in the beach chair behind him, and moved toward the seated man. Gary flinched and raised his hands in front of him, "I'm sorry!" he proclaimed, "I'll help in any other way, I promise." Zari reached out and stopped Mick, who growled in response. "Just let me hit him once, Z, I promise I won't kill him."

"No, no," she said. "He's not wrong to try to fight us on this one. It's just that there is no other way." Zari stepped forward, the man flinched again. She squatted down in front of him. "Listen, there's one thing I forgot to mention," she started smoothly as she tilted her head and rested her forearm on the arm of the beach chair. "I've placed a solid TB of hentai porn on your work computer with a remote trigger that would release it to the Time Bureau message board. I truly feel bad, sort of, for that, but this is the only way we get Gideon back. You're going to help us." Gary gasped. Zari made direct eye contact with the man, hoping the seriousness in her face and severity of her threat would save her from having to let Mick beat the employee.

"How in the world…" he started.

"How isn't important." Zari interrupted. She leaned slightly closer to the man. "You're going to help us. Right?"

"Uh, yep, yes, it seems as though I am," he sheepishly replied, defeated. "I can get you a badge and the access codes. The access codes for that wing change daily, so I won't be able to provide them until tomorrow. How will I get them to you? I can't necessarily zip over here without being noticed, Director Sharpe will be suspicious." Zari doubted the validity of that statement but had an alternative method anyway. She stood and turned to receive a high five from a clearly drunk Nate.

She turned and leaned against a storage container that faced Gary, her legs crossed at the ankle, as one hand caressed the gold chain that held her Air totem just below the hollow of her neck. "Sara is going to be at the Time Bureau office tomorrow morning. You'll bump into her and put the badge and list of codes in her jacket pocket."

"Oh! Like a Shady Sands Shuffle," Nate said. "I always wanted to learn how to do that! Fallout is awesome!"

Gary looked slightly terrified, mouth askew. "How in the world am I supposed to do that?! Director Sharpe will catch me!"

"No, she won't," Zari countered. "Cause Mick here is going to show you how it's done."

Gary looked terrified. Nate found the idea hilarious. Mick just grunted, shrugged, and set down the last beer of the six-pack.

"Okay, here's what you do…" Mick began the lesson, always up for a challenge when it came to his second-favorite art form.


	5. The Gideon Factor Part Five

**The Gideon Factor**

Part Five

Sara was up long before the majority of her team, though the early morning was against the blonde woman's nature. Dressed and prepped for her encounter with the Time Bureau Director, she briefly passed through the galley to snag one of Ray's homemade bran protein bars for breakfast on her way to the Jump ship. While at first, she had made fun of Ray for insisting on continuing to bake the breakfast bars himself, they once did a side-by-side taste test between Ray's creation and Gideon's replication of the recipe, and Ray's were genuinely better. Something about the texture just wasn't quite right from the food fabricator. Since then, she'd become slightly obsessed with the bars.

Amaya was seated at the bar-height table in the galley, also dressed and ready for the day. "Good morning, Sara," she greeted as she ate a bowl of multi-grain cheerios with fresh blueberries.

"Hey, good morning. Where is everyone?" the Captain asked as she grabbed the bar and returned to lean on the table-top across from the trim woman.

"Ray is back in the lab making sleeping darts for the prison break, and I think everyone else is asleep still. I know Nate crawled into bed, drunk, at around three this morning, so I'd say they'll be out for a while,"

she replied, rolling her eyes at her love's sometimes childish behavior. "Oh, and I think they tried to leave you a note, if you can make out what it says," Amaya handed the blonde a torn piece of paper with a sloppy scrawl on it.

"Maybe something about Gary and the office?" Sara guessed. "Who knows. Whatever, I'm sure I'll find out when I get back. I'm heading to the Time Bureau office to talk to Ava and to see about getting us a loaner ship. While I could handle most things manually, I'm guessing we'll have some tricky maneuvers before this thing is over." The Captain grabbed a second breakfast bar, an orange juice from the fridge, and an iced black coffee and headed down the hallway, through the Cargo Bay, and toward the Jump ship.

She paused as she noted the beach chairs, beer bottles, wine glass, and empty Faygo can and wondered what in the hell her team had been up to last night. Especially with such a stressful day ahead of them today. Slightly peeved, she pressed her palm to the vacuum sealed door that led to the Jump ship, waited for the airlock to finish hissing, and passed through to the smaller ship.

The Jump ship was one of Sara's favorite parts of the Waverider. It was a great place to find some much needed privacy, and it was the first ship she was able to fly manually. As someone not very technologically inclined, she finally felt like a Captain for the first time when she realized the only technology that genuinely made sense to her were the controls of the Jump ship and the complex panel that piloted the Waverider. The smaller ship had four seats built into the length of each wall, and a Captain's chair that faced the front of the ship and the control panel. A communications monitor was built in to the ceiling of the ship, to the right of center, in the Captain's area as well.

Sara settled into the seat and pulled the shoulder harness over her head to secure herself in position. She initiated the start sequence and heard the soothing, rhythmic hum as the engines fired. Before taking off, she pressed a series of buttons on a panel below the comms monitor, the screen descended, and she waited. A moment later, Ava appeared in the screen, and Sara could tell the woman was already in the office.

What time their day started was something that took some compromise when the two women started to date more seriously. While Ave tended to wake up before dawn and go to the gym before her work day started, Sara preferred to wake up naturally, usually around 9am. Since the younger woman wasn't responsible for running an office, her morning routine was relaxed and typically involved copious amounts of coffee and chatting with her team. Then, she'd spend an hour or two sparring with whoever happened to be willing to face off against the compact woman. Their hesitation was a testament to the extensive martial arts training she'd received while with the League and strenuously continued after she'd left. Now, when they spent the night together, they'd motivate around 7am and had taken up sparring together before the Director left for work. Sara found her partner to be almost on her level in terms of skill and enjoyed the spirited competition.

Despite the heated separation the previous day, Sara couldn't help but smile when she saw the woman. Although dressed in her typical work suit, Ava's hair was down and over one shoulder with long, loose curls. It was a style Sara particularly liked. "Hey," Sara started off tentatively, fully aware of her dickish behavior. "Look, I'm sorry I snapped yesterday. Do you have a few minutes for me to come by and talk? I'll try to communicate like an adult."

The Director tilted her head and smirked at her partner. She was still a little upset and knew that the blonde wasn't likely to give up on the Time Bureau releasing Nyssa. But, they had been working on direct communication, and she couldn't ignore the gut-deep response she had at the idea of seeing her partner in person. She made the woman wait an extra beat and nodded. "Yeah, come on over. I'm heading to a quick conference call now, but I should be done by the time you get here. I'll meet you at my office."

"Okay, sounds good," Sara replied, and pushed another series of buttons to terminate the session and retract the screen. Then, she curled a leg under her and keyed in the commands to launch the Jump ship and travel to the West Wing docking station in the Time Bureau building located in Star City.

Sara arrived and docked the Jump ship successfully in the large, open bay hangar next to the sleek, black hull of the Jump ship she knew the Time Bureau Director preferred. _One thing about working for the Time Bureau_ , _they get seriously legit toys,_ she thought as she made her way through the station, signed her ship's information in the log, and passed through the airlocked door into the main atrium of the West Wing.

Sara handed off the iced coffee she carried to the guard at the front desk, gave the large, freakishly strong man a fist bump, and signed into the building. "Hey, Jay, good to see you." Sara always brought the man some sort of caffeinated beverage, knowing his position was typically overlooked and underappreciated. Plus, it was always a good idea to maintain a solid relationship with the main guard at an institution where your relationship fluctuated as much as Sara's did with the Time Bureau. One never knew when the sign-in roster may need to be altered. Jay smiled at her, thanked her for the coffee, and she passed through the turnstile to wind her way back to her partner's office.

The Time Bureau was an admittedly high-end operation and it was obvious that Rip Hunter spared no expense in its establishment. The ceilings were high, the workspaces were outfitted with top of the line workstations, and there was natural sunlight throughout the building. However, it still had the cold, impersonal feeling of a government agency that Sara felt crushed both dreams and creativity alike. All the employees were required to follow a very strict dress code, and Sara had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince Ava to relax the standards once she was appointed as the Director. Honestly, Sara simply hated the outfit on her partner, and Ava was able to make just about anything look good.

Sara approached Ava's office door, which stood slightly open, knocked on it and stuck her head in to make sure she wasn't interrupting. Ava stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up one wall of her Director's office. She looked over her shoulder at the sound of the knock and took in the form of the compact blonde woman. Sara was dressed in fitted maroon pants with gray pinstripes tucked into her standard black, ankle boots, a white button-up shirt, and an open gray leather jacket. Her blonde hair was down and curled, and her overall appearance was downright sleek. _Plus, there's just something about the way she carries herself,_ the Director mused as her partner shut the door and crossed the floor.

Ava turned and leaned back against the window. The sleeves on her white-button up shirt were rolled to the elbow to expose tanned forearms as the Director's poly-blend jacket was ditched at the end of a frustrating conference call. "Hey, you," she greeted the shorter woman.

Sara didn't break her stride as she approached, her light blue eyes locked with the Director's darker blue. She reached up and put her hand through the taller woman's long hair, her other hand in the small of her back and pulled her close. She didn't say a word as she pressed her body into the taller woman's and met her lips full on. It only took the Director a moment to respond and she leaned into the kiss, wrapped her arms around the smaller woman's thighs and lifted. Sara immediately understood the Director's plan and hopped slightly to wrap her legs around her partner's slim but solid waist.

Ava pushed herself further off the glass of the window and carried the compact blonde woman over to her large, walnut desk. She sat Sara on the edge of the desk, legs still wrapped around her. Sara removed her hand from Ava's hair as she continued to explore the taller woman's mouth and struggled to remove her leather jacket. She pulled away slightly, "Get this fucking thing off me," she grumbled, and the Director smoothly slid her hands over her lover's shoulders and allowed Sara to free her well-toned arms and the leather jacket fell to the desk.

"I thought we were going to talk like adults," Ava offered, as her hands eagerly untucked the blonde woman's shirt and lightly ran her nails across Sara's lower back, aware of the scars that passed beneath her fingertips, until her hands gripped her partner's waist. Sara pressed herself up with one hand, Ava able to feel the extension of the woman's defined abs under her hands, and Sara tilted the Director's head to the side with the other. She kissed the taller woman's neck and leaned up to her ear. "We've always been better at non-verbal communication," she said softly in a tone that sent chills down Ava's body, compounded as the blonde woman took her earlobe into her soft mouth. "Besides," she continued, "this feels pretty adult to me."

Ava looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. She could feel herself losing control of the situation quickly. _As though I ever had control of this particular situation_. Sara's hands moved to the buttons of her shirt and the smaller woman pulled back slightly to look into the Director's eyes. Something about what she saw there made her stop, though she wrapped her legs tightly around the Director's hips and held her firmly between her maroon-clad thighs. Sara dropped her hands to the desk behind her and leaned back, the taller woman's hands moved to her stomach as Ava tucked her fingers under the waistband of Sara's pants in a gripping motion. The blonde woman cocked her head to the side.

"Okay, okay, you're right. We'll talk," Sara said grudgingly. "But these," she grabbed each of the Director's hands in turn and placed them on a maroon-glad thigh, "can't be there. Not if you want me to actually participate in the conversation at least." Ava smirked in return and nodded, lightly making designs with her thumbs on the woman's thighs.

"Listen," Sara started, "what I said yesterday… I was frustrated and annoyed and disappointed. I don't understand your reasoning behind not releasing Nyssa to help, but it's your call. I'm sure your reasons are valid, even if I don't agree with the outcome." Ava was speechless for a moment. It's not that Sara was unable to process emotion; the Director knew her lover felt things very strongly. It's just that she was rarely able to fully articulate the feelings directly, especially when the result was the opposite of what she wanted. The compact blonde was almost always able to transform her desires into reality and would fight tooth and nail until that reality matched her goals. Especially since the death of her sister.

Ava smiled at the blonde woman and leaned over her on the desk, kissing the compact woman's lips to show her appreciation in a manner the blonde would feel. She let the passion build for a moment, and then leaned back again. "Apology accepted," she said as she took a step back, freed from the woman's legs. Sara reached her hands out, and Ava pulled her gently off the desk. They both took a moment to return their clothing to a more respectable state.

"Okay," the Director started, "so what do we do about Gideon? How do we free her from Norah and Talia?" Sara finished tucking in her shirt and paced to the window. She was glad of the warmth the sun provided coming through the large windows as her clear blue eyes took on a steely hue. The blonde woman spent years lying to everyone she loved, not only about existing, but about what she'd experienced and who she'd become after her return to life. She'd even spent anguished nights lying to herself, because while her path into darkness had started as survival, she'd also found a sense of freedom in the deadly skills she'd spent hours upon hours honing during that time. Skills that gave her a sense of confidence, independence, and purpose that she'd never imagined prior to Nanda Parbat. And for a time, her love of the hunt, and her love of Nyssa al Ghul, were all that mattered.

But, the duality of her relationship with the Time Bureau Director forefront on her mind, she was glad she needed distance from the older woman to access that part of her personality. _I hate this,_ she thought to herself, as she knew Mick already had the basis of a plan in mind for the Legends crew to free Nyssa from the Time Bureau holding facility. From there, Sara knew she'd slip back into the darkness to free Gideon. _There just isn't any other way. Not with Talia and Nanda Parbat involved._ Sara took a deep breath before she faced her partner because she knew everything else out of her mouth to the beautiful woman was going to be a lie.

A false plan in place, Sara and Ava walked side-by-side as they made their way back through the office maze toward the aircraft landing facility. "Okay, so I'll have a Time Bureau ship sent to the Waverider. Just have Nate or someone send the coordinates and setup the docking station," Ava said. Sara nodded in response as they turned the corner to the vast atrium only to have Gary crash headlong into the two women.

"What the hell, Gary?!" Ava said as she quickly reached out to help balance the shorter woman. Sara stumbled back, but quickly set her feet and glared in confusion at the thin man. _It probably would have been helpful if that note had been legible._

"S-s-sorry, ladies. I mean, Director Sharpe, Captain Lance. So sorry!" The man raised both hands in front of him and quickly passed between the two women. "Uh, I'd love to stay and chat," he continued awkwardly as he made his way toward his office, "but I have a very important conference call waiting." The man turned away from the women, though not without throwing another glance over his shoulder in their direction as a sigh of relief escaped him. He couldn't wait to tell Mick how well he did.

Ava's hand remained on the blonde woman's lower back as they continued to the Jump ship. "Okay, so let me know when you get back from your scouting mission, and we'll get together and verify the details of what you find. I'll file the paperwork to schedule a meeting with Nyssa, and she can give you any additional information she has to offer." Ava quickly re-capped the basics of the plan the two women had developed. _It's not a bad plan, really,_ Sara thought, though she only wasted a moment doubting her decision. Not only was she determined to avoid seeing a Time Bureau team slaughtered by the League of Assassins, but her desire to free her former love wouldn't be denied. _Just not the way it's going to go._

As Sara turned to climb into her ship, she was stopped by a not-so-subtle noise from her partner. Sara set a sheepish look on her face, quickly hopped down and turned to face the taller woman. "Sorry, my mind is somewhere else," she explained. Ava reached toward the compact woman and Sara easily moved into her arms. The shorter woman looked into the dark blue eyes and fought to keep her resolve. _I've never had this much trouble keeping a secret_ , she thought as she stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around her partner's neck. _And I'm a woman with plenty of experience living a double-life._ Again, she couldn't wait for this portion of the mission to be over.

Of course, Sara knew that the Time Bureau Director would be well aware that one of her prisoner's escaped, Ava was incredibly adept at her job. Sara just hoped she'd be able to convince her partner to go along with the plan once it was already in motion. Her guilt was slightly assuaged by the idea that she was likely saving Ava's life as well. Nanda Parbat wasn't a place you navigated successfully without inside knowledge. In fact, it was designed and defended specifically to keep unwanted visitors out.

Sara kissed the Director until she felt reconnected to the woman. She was determined to make it through the mission without completely shutting down her emotions, though she could already feel the instinctive pull to do so. She leaned into the taller woman's body and let her hands wander down the long, lean muscles of the woman's back. As her breathing became ragged, she reluctantly pulled away and placed a final, chaste kiss on the woman's lips. The Director smiled and released her partner.

"Be careful," Ava said as Sara nodded and turned to climb into the Jump ship. Ava stood for a moment more, watching her partner prep and settle in to the ship. Then she waved a final time as she was forced to step back with the whine of the igniting engines.

As Sara watched Ava's confident stride head back toward the building, she keyed the comms unit to connect to the backup communications device on the Waverider. Ray picked up and Sara quickly briefed him on the requirements to receive the loaner Time Bureau aircraft. In the background, Sara could vaguely hear Nate call out to her, and then the Steel man's voice took over the comms unit.

"Captain! Hey, did you happen to see Gary while you were there?" he asked, slightly breathless.

Sara cocked her head in confusion and replied, "I mean, he bumped into us, but he didn't say anything. What was with that message you tried to leave me last night?" she asked as she realized the two things could be related.

"Are you wearing a jacket? Please tell me you're wearing a jacket. That's what we practiced with," the man continued, causing even more confusion for the blonde.

"Uh, yeah, I'm wearing a jacket. Nate, what the hell is going on?" she asked as she started checking her jacket. Suddenly, in her right jacket pocket, she felt something that she knew she hadn't put there. From the pocket, she removed a badge on a Zelda lanyard with a sticky note affixed to the badge. "Whoa," she exclaimed, a bit shocked she hadn't noticed the man slip the items into her jacket. "Nate, are these what I think they are? How did he do that? How did he know I was going to be there?" she asked, now thoroughly confused.

"Mick! Zari! He did it! He pulled it off!" he yelled at his co-conspirators. "Captain, come back and we'll tell you all about it! But, the short version is that we blackmailed Gary into helping us and you now have an access badge and today's access codes to the East Wing of the Time Bureau where the holding facility is. Oh, and Mick has a breakout plan for Nyssa."

Sara was speechless. She always had faith in her team to get things done eventually, but they rarely found themselves well-prepared and ahead of the curve. _Honestly, this almost makes me more nervous._ To her crew she simply said, "You guys are fucking awesome. I'm on my way back. Let's get this show on the road." Nate pumped his fist in the air, stoked that one of his independent plans finally worked out.


	6. The Gideon Factor Part Six

**The Gideon Factor**

Part Six

Sara approached the Waverider and noted the securely docked ship that was on loan from the Time Bureau. She initiated the sequence that would allow her to return the Jump ship to its own docking station and noted that the Time Bureau vessel seemed to be one of their standard issue aircraft. It was much smaller than the Waverider, but she knew the ship would be more functional than all the Legends trying to squeeze into the Jump ship for any period of time. It had a sleek, rounded form constructed by a combination of an aluminum composite and titanium alloy with the ship's alphanumeric serial number in large, white block font on the side.

She quickly secured the Jump ship, unfastened the restraints, and stood, reaching her arms high above her head, followed by a couple quick hops to get her circulation going to her extremities. Sara could only hope that the pilot seat in the Time Bureau ship was more comfortable than the Jump ship's and made a mental note to upgrade the seat she just left when this fiasco was over. _Maybe Ray can fabricate something_ , she thought as she made her way through the Cargo Bay doors and down the long hallway to find her team.

Nate spotted the Captain as she turned the corner and entered the main bridge. "Hey, Cap'n, we're in here," he called from the library. The five members of the Legends team got up from their sprawled positions throughout the library where they clearly waited for the return of the blonde woman. As Sara trotted up the wide stairs into the room, they all formed up around the large wooden table, scarred with years of mission planning and research. _Plus a few nights playing quarters._ The circular table was currently covered by a black and white printout of the Time Bureau building blueprints.

Sara took her place at the table and held up the badge and access code sheet, giving her team a proud smile. "When this is over, remind me to get the story on how you taught Gary to do that." Nate beamed in response and nodded toward Mick. "That's all the big guy! He taught Zari and me how to do it too," he said excitedly. "It was awesome!" he turned to the dark-haired woman next to him with his hand up. Zari rolled her eyes in a good-natured manner and gave the historian a high five, unable to resist his childlike enthusiasm.

Sara laughed, shook her head, and set the badge and paper on the table. She leaned on her hands to get a better look at the blueprints. "Okay, what do you guys have so far?" Now that it was time for business, Sara took a moment to appreciate the sense of urgency she felt creeping into her consciousness. Gideon had already been in the hands of Norah Darhk and Talia al Ghul for almost 24 hours and Sara knew the Legends still had some hurdles to clear before they could steal her back. She could also feel the beginning tickle of trepidation at the thought of using the Death totem again. _One problem at a time, Killer,_ she told herself and focused her attention on the blueprints as Mick began to explain the plan.

"Okay, Boss," the large man began as he indicated an area on the map. "So, the East Wing is here, that's where they're holding the lady." Sara took a brief moment to imagine Nyssa's response at being referred to as 'the lady' but nodded to the man to continue. She figured her gruff teammate would meet the dynamic, dark presence of her former lover soon enough. "As you know, most of the big wigs' offices and day-to-day operations are manned from the West Wing over here." Sara immediately picked out Ava's office on the map and was momentarily relieved at the distance between the tall blonde's office and the holding facility. _As if betraying her from a distance made it any better._

"We're going to have Zari here on the Mother ship with remote access to the Time Bureau system. She's going to cause a diversion, set off the sprinklers or some shit," he stated vaguely, clearly trusting Zari to come up with that part of the plan. Sara made eye contact with the woman across the table from her, received a nod, and made a mental note to circle back around to that important detail. "Nate and Amaya will run interference with the diversion plan while you, Ray and I use the cargo delivery elevator to enter the building with a fake delivery."

Ray took over the plan for a moment. "Captain, when we get in the cargo and repair storage room, I can shrink down and travel through the air ducts to Ms. al Ghul's holding cell," he offered helpfully. And while the idea was sound for a normal jailbreak, Sara knew from experience that if someone suddenly appeared in the holding cell with Nyssa al Ghul, he wasn't going to last long. Especially if it was someone she didn't know, and that person was a man in a super-suit. Sara could remember the first time she witnessed Nyssa's incredible reflexes first-hand.

 _She and Nyssa were still traveling back to Nanda Parbat from Lian Yu, and Sara had finally regained enough strength to be somewhat useful to the duo. She had learned that while her strange traveling companion was an outstanding hunter and could cook well enough not to starve, the dark-haired woman clearly didn't seem to care enough to create meals that actually had flavor, or variety for that matter. Sara, on the other hand, although she didn't take a ton of pleasure in the chore, was raised sharing in the cooking tasks with her family members._

 _So, on this evening, when Nyssa stopped their progress earlier than usual and stated in a tone that discouraged company that she was going to visit some ancient ruin or something that was apparently important to her bloodline, Sara decided to test her newly budding hunting skills. 'I'll make a real meal for us,' she stated to herself. Sara was starting to realize that her brooding companion's approval meant a lot to her and wanted to show that she really did pay attention to the woman's many lessons on survival._

 _Sara made her way carefully through the woods, away from their campsite, trying desperately not to break all the twigs between her and where she thought she'd spotted a small deer nearby. Once she had recovered from near starvation and her injuries enough to move comfortably, she'd started practicing how to control her body so that she could walk softly and avoid making a 'horrible ruckus' as she had been accused of by the older woman. As she picked her way forward, she noted some berries that she could grab on the return trip. 'Plus, I think I spotted some mint on the other side of the campsite earlier. I'll show her how we do dinner, Lance style," she softly mumbled to herself, moving with a definite purpose now._

 _She approached the small clearing where she had spotted the deer, reset her grip on the knife that was gifted to her by the taller woman. Sara had been impressed with how carefully wrapped the handle was in a fine, red leather, and she currently ran her thumb along the hilts smooth, comfortable grip. Sara set herself behind a boulder on the edge of the clearing and waited, knowing the young deer would likely return to the small pond set inside the open space. She'd only waited a few minutes before the animal returned and Sara smirked in satisfaction, a facial trait she realized she was adopting from her darker companion. She prepared herself mentally, and slowly crept from her hiding place._

 _Sara had been so focused on controlling her motions and her breathing that she had traveled almost halfway between the rock and the small body of water before she sensed someone watching her. She glanced over her shoulder and it took her a moment to spot her onlooker, still as the trees around her, standing next to the rock Sara had abandoned only minutes before. Sara took a moment to be impressed with how the black-clad woman was somehow able to blend in to the forest and couldn't help a small grin in response to the watchful smirk on her dark-haired companion's face. Sara turned her attention back to her task and refocused on the young deer that had returned and moved closer to the water._

 _Suddenly, Sara heard a twig break off to her right and she froze, unsure if her companion had moved toward that direction, but entirely aware that she now felt danger along the tree line. 'No way would Nyssa be that noisy', she thought to herself. She glanced back over her shoulder, where she'd previously spotted the older woman, and met the dark brown eyes that immediately tracked to the location of the noise. In an instant, the tall woman was in motion._

" _Sara, get down!" Nyssa screamed and before Sara had time to move, the powerful woman had pulled out her collapsible bo staff, took two fast steps and launched herself off Sara's rock toward the blonde woman. Nyssa stretched her body out in the air, her velocity a testament to the powerful thigh muscles she had spent years developing. Sara was in awe as the dark-haired woman careened in her direction and viciously swung the staff toward the ground before she tucked her knees to her chest and gracefully rolled as she struck the earth just past Sara._

 _Sara had heard a distinct clang with the swing of the staff and finally threw herself down to the ground. From her prone position, she spotted a throwing knife sticking out of the moist earth, a foot or so beyond where her head now lay. Someone had tried to kill her, and Nyssa saved her life…again. Sara was startled as Nyssa tore after their attacker into the woods. Nyssa was able to capture the attacker and learned that he was sent by a rogue faction in the League to kill the dark-haired woman. The man had planned to kill the Heir to the Demon's traveling companion and kill the Heir herself in her moment of grief._

That moment had quickly changed the course of their training, as Sara insisted that Nyssa begin teaching her the bo staff and the vigorous exercises she'd need to strengthen her body and become a formidable opponent to any future attackers. She refused to be someone's weakness, especially someone as strong as Nyssa Raatko. It was a premonition of what was to come in the young blonde woman's life. Looking back, Sara realized how quickly she'd shifted from just wanting to survive, to taking pride in the cuts and bruises she acquired as she slowly turned her body into a weapon. She put the thoughts aside and refocused on her team.

Now, how to explain the risk to her teammate that didn't make it seem like she didn't trust him to handle the situation. "She'll kill you," Sara stated bluntly, internally peeved at her continued lack of nuance. "How about I go through the vents and you and Mick can clear the escape route with the sleeping darts you worked on. Thank you for that, by the way," she nodded toward the ship's engineer.

"Yeah, haircut," Mick stated, "thanks for making it so the Boss lets me shoot people." It was a sincere statement from the larger man and Ray visibly puffed himself up with the praise from his gruff friend.

Sara turned her attention to the in-house hacker. "Zari, any chance you can do your distraction plan both remotely and without Nate and Amaya? I need them to do a favor for me."

The hacker took a moment to consider the request as she put her loosely curled locks into a quick and messy bun. She laughed quietly to herself causing a quirk to her Captain's eyebrow. "Yeah, I can take care of it." When it came to computer stuff, Sara trusted the woman completely. Despite Zari's unfavorable past with government agencies, the Captain also knew that the brilliant woman supported her growing relationship with the Time Bureau Director and hoped that meant she knew not to go too far. Basically, as long as the dark-haired woman limited any damage to things and avoided the Time Bureau employees, the blonde was willing to give the hacker free reign to do what she needed to do.

"Sara, if you don't need us for the diversion, what's the favor? How can we help?" Amaya asked as she leaned her lithe frame against the planning table.

"See, the thing is," Sara began hesitantly as she stepped away from the round table and began pacing through the Library. "I told Ava that we were going to use the Time Bureau ship to go on a scouting mission of Nanda Parbat. I know for sure that there are tracking devices on the ship, as there should be, and I'd imagine that Ava will have someone keeping tabs on where we take it." She'd made her way over to a vertical stand that contained numerous large, rolled maps. Sara carefully searched through the maps until she found the one she was looking for, slightly older than the surrounding options with round, wooden knobs on each end, and removed it.

Sara carried the map back toward her team as Mick and Nate made a space for the Captain between them. She placed the item on the table and unhooked the carved antler clasp that secured the strip of wide, brown leather around the map. Nate, always the historian, admired the various shades of brown that made up the land forms of the Near East, India, and the surrounding lands on the map. He put his longer arms to good use and reverently helped unroll the map, as Ray did the same from the opposite side.

"Since I couldn't necessarily tell the Director of the Time Bureau that we were going to be breaking in to her facility later today, I need you two to take the Time Bureau ship somewhere in this region," she indicated an area in the Himalayan mountains. "It doesn't really matter where, to be honest, since very few people know where Nanda Parbat is, but I'd like for you guys to end up somewhere close, so it looks believable to whoever is tracking you."

"This is fantastic, Captain!" Nate said excitedly. "There's a sic temple that Wally told me and Amaya about in Nepal. Is that close enough?" Sara figured that would put them in a neighboring country to the hidden city's actual location, but what the hell. It would get the job done.

"As long as it's secluded, it should be fine," she replied. Sara was both happy and slightly jealous to see the look of excitement shared between Nate and Amaya. She knew she was putting a lot of faith in a relatively new relationship to trust that she and Ava would make it through the upcoming fiasco. _Well, we've had to pull the relationship from the ashes before, so maybe everything will be okay_. _Maybe it's like the phoenix of relationships._

Sara took one end of the map and began rolling it up. "Captain, aren't you going to show us where Nanda Parbat actually is?" Ray asked, supported by a round of nods from his teammates. Well, everyone except Mick, who had lost interest the second they'd stopped talking about the plan itself. "I can show you the general area," the blonde woman began, "but without the key, it's still pretty vague." She quickly unrolled the map once more and indicated an area in a northwestern range of the Himalayas. There really weren't many distinguishing factors, and Nate could only narrow it down to possibly lie in an area of what is now northeastern Pakistan.

"Okay, so who has the key?" Ray asked logically.

"Nyssa." Sara said with a slight shrug. "I'm really not just being sentimental when I say we need her help. We genuinely need her to even find the place. It's in a hidden valley at the base of Nanga Parbat peak, but both time and location work differently in Nanda Parbat. It would be impossible to locate it at two consecutive moments in time without the key and this map. So, let's go get her." Sara rolled the map once again and moved to set it on a wooden shelf that took up the majority of a wall in the library.

It was difficult to refocus from the mystery and mystical nature of Nanda Parbat, and Sara recognized the slightly glazed look in her team's eyes. If it had been vampires, she may have lost Mick as well, but the man was reliably unphased by most wonders of the world. As Sara returned to her place at the table, she indicated the blueprints once more and got the attention of the burly man. "Okay, Mick, so Zari causes a distraction, Nate and Amaya take the Time Bureau ship, I can fly the Jump ship manually and we can cloak her near our escape route. What am I missing?" She leaned on her forearms, feeling the welcome stretch through her back as she looked up at the man.

"That's about it, Boss. Haircut found some Time Bureau outfits in the Time Bureau ship." To which Sara immediately groaned. "Mick, really? You're going to make me wear the polyblend outfit of my nightmares? Hell, you're willing to do that?!" She asked, incredulous that the man would be willing to put himself in a navy-blue government suit.

"Oh, hell no, Boss. They're for the guys that work in the ship repair bay." The Captain let out a sigh of relief and motioned for the man to continue. "You, me, and Haircut will use the Cargo delivery elevator here in the northeast corner of the building. It'll bring us in to the Cargo and Repairs Storage facility. There are three guys that work in there, according to the schedule Z stole. We'll dart those dudes. There's an access point to the ventilation system here on the southeast wall of the room. You'll enter through there." In this moment, Sara loved her thieving teammate. Straightforward and efficient.

"Okay, Zari, which holding cell is Nyssa in?" There were four holding cells indicated on the blueprint, all along the eastern-most wall of the building. It looked like the ventilation access point that Mick had indicated passed over each of the cells. It was impossible to tell if there was a duct large enough for her to exit into the cell from the print, but she could only hope that her team had the answer. A security office took up most of the western portion of the East Wing, and Sara recalled seeing large glass windows and well-armed guards within the office on the tour Ava gave her on her first visit. _I bet Nyssa was right there and I didn't even know it._

"This is all so much easier with Gideon here," the dark-haired woman grumbled as she retrieved her laptop from a small table next to the overstuffed chair she'd occupied when the Captain returned. She made her way back and placed the open machine in front of the Captain, having to lightly shove Nate's solid form to make a place for her next to the Captain.

"I was able to hack into the security system, though only for a few minutes in case they actually monitor that server more than they do the one all the employee computers use. Nyssa was initially in the second cell from where you'll be entering the vents, but we had Mick here encourage Gary to move her to the next cell down so that you'd have an access point into the actual cell." It took Sara a moment to process what Zari said as she was now faced with her former lover. Zari had pulled up the security feed from this morning to verify that Gary had indeed been able to move the woman to a more accessible location. She was clad in a light gray, nondescript jump suit and was calmly pacing the rectangular cell. Her long, dark hair was slightly unkempt, but Sara thought she looked healthy and alert from what she could tell on the lightly grained feed. She couldn't help the feeling she got in the pit of her stomach upon seeing the woman again. The anticipation. _Probably will never go away,_ she thought to herself.

The vent was approximately halfway down the room and appeared to be about two feet from the back wall of the holding cell. The location was a definite problem because it fell directly in line with where the two security cameras crossed paths and would be visible to the well-armed guards in the security office. It had obviously been a consideration during the design of the holding area and Sara took a moment to mentally curse Rip Hunter for what must be the 1,564,861 time. A number that had increased significantly since she'd learned of her current girlfriend's clone status.

"Okay, how many guards are in the security office? Obviously, I'd like to avoid them, but if it comes down to it, we're getting Nyssa out of there, security guards be damned." Sara made a quick mental note to bring clothes for the tall, pacing woman and hoped Zari or Amaya would have something that would fit. It would be tight since Nyssa had a more muscular frame than the two lean women. _Meh, maybe I still have something laying around that will work._ "There are two inside the office and one that stands near the half-wall that goes out to the main atrium area. They seem to rotate positions every two hours or so. I'm hoping my diversion will pull the man outside the office to the Ship Docking Bay, but who knows." Sara took in the information and really hoped they'd be able to avoid interacting with the guards face-to-face.

Nate snapped his fingers on both hands and took a quick step away from the table. "Z! I got it! What if you cut into their security feed for as long as you think is safe and record whatever Nyssa is doing at the time. Then, you can take the recording and loop it back into what the guards see in the security office. Like what they did in the movie Speed!" Nate genuinely liked nothing more than getting to reenact famous movie plots during missions, but if it was possible, it would buy Sara and Nyssa time to get back into the ventilation system and hopefully out of the building before the security guards realized she was gone. Plus, she'd only have to worry about the outside guard looking into the small window in the holding cell door at the exact moment she dropped down or the exact moment they climbed up. _Surely to goodness…_ Sara thought and immediately rapped her knuckles on the wooden table.

Zari thought about the cyber security for a moment. It would mean gaining remote access to the secluded security office's server, which she had done successfully for a few moments, but accessing a server for a few moment versus the time it would take to make a recording and set it to re-sector into the security feed was a much more challenging task. She took a mental inventory of the programs she had at her disposal. It was possible that if she tweaked the code on a program she had written to hack an ARGUS security system and tethered it to one she'd created for video editing that it might work. Who knew those long nights of making random dubsmash videos with her teammates would pay off in an actual mission.

Satisfied that her plan may work, she looked up to realize everyone had been waiting on her answer. "Oh, sorry, uhm, yeah, I think I have something that will work. I'll have to make a few adjustments to a couple of things. Give me… 30 minutes." She met Sara's gaze and noted the smirk the Captain often gave when she was proud of her teammates but didn't know quite how to express it. Zari grabbed her laptop from the table and made her way out of the library and down the hall to her living quarters.

Zari's quarters were fairly sparse, with the exception of her workstation and her only framed photograph she'd been able to save of her family that was proudly framed and displayed on a mounted shelf just to the side of her computer. She'd slowly began to acquire items from their travels, but the bare nature of her décor remained an ingrained testament to the nomadic lifestyle she was forced to live while on the run in 2042. Her accommodations included a large, overstuffed loveseat in dark green leather and an extra soft mattress she'd had Gideon construct in rebellion against all the times she'd had to sleep on the floor somewhere. However, she'd tried to sleep with a million pillows after she'd seen the Captain's bed and realized she felt suffocated and kept waking in a panic.

The one space the hacker had taken special care to develop was her workstation that consumed the majority of the wall opposite her bed. With Gideon's help and only the limitations of her imagination, the multi-monitored, over-powered computer system she'd developed was really everything she'd needed to feel settled in the Waverider. She entered her living space, kicked off her shoes, and settled cross-legged in the large, leather office chair also in a dark green that matched the loveseat.

Zari removed the discs she'd need to create the new program, fired up the machine, cranked some Kittie, a group she was exposed to during one of her sparring sessions with Sara, and got to work. Revamping the program really didn't take long as the concept was simple, and she'd done the leg work with the program's initial development. As she started the program that would allow her access into the security feed and executed the coding required to copy the feed in a loop, she really hoped Nyssa was visible in the holding cell. The hacker sensed someone's presence in the room with her and was startled as she glanced up and saw Sara moving across the room. The Captain typically left her to her own devices and trusted her to get the job done, so she checked the progress bar on the program, turned down the music and shifted her attention to the blonde woman.

Sara had changed from her 'visiting the Time Bureau' garb into the clothes she'd be wearing through the vents and subsequently under her ship repair employee jumpsuit. As straight as she was, Zari realized her Captain looked legit in the black tank top and skin tight black pants, her rounded shoulders and well-defined arms clearly displayed. "Hey, what's up? The program is running and I'm about to make the loop footage, as long as Nyssa's actually in frame for me to loop." Zari noticed the blonde woman stifle a quick grin at the mention of the assassin's name.

"Yeah, I thought that might be what you were up to. I just wanted to check in, you know, make sure you still thought it would work. See if I could…help with anything, I guess." Sara replied, though she knew full well the hacker could see right through her excuses.

"Hah. Uhm, yeah, no. I'll know in a minute if the plan will work, but the concept is sound, and it wouldn't be because we lack the ability to do it if it falls apart." Zari kicked her feet out from under her and turned her attention to her clearly anxious Captain and friend. Zari knew she and Sara had finally developed a solid friendship, once they got through the emotional walls both women had developed and decided to trust one another. Zari also knew that gave her the freedom to call Sara on her sometimes poorly hidden baggage in a way that none of the other members dared. "So, what's the deal? I mean, really? You never check up on me and you're clearly anxious about something beyond normal pre-mission jitters." Zari could almost see the decision being made in the clear blue eyes, and she took a moment to key in the next command to give the blonde woman a moment to gather her thoughts as the Captain slid down the wall facing her.

Sara leaned back and kicked her legs out in front of her, slightly wiggling her black sock clad feet. "Nyssa's in that holding facility because of me," she stated bluntly and took in the dark-haired woman's reaction. Zari kept her face neutral, but she could see the intrigue in her eyes as she simply nodded her head and allowed Sara to decide how much she was willing to share.

"Ava said the League stopped covering Nyssa's tracks and that she went more or less crazy in December 2015. I died in November 2015, but Nyssa didn't find out until the next month. She was off the grid on a mission and it's not like my family or Oliver Queen really had the means, method, or desire to find her and tell her. She lost it because of me. She's in a Time Bureau holding facility because of me. I apparently saw her when I was soulless, but I don't have a clear recollection of that time in my life. Then, of course, I saw her after she destroyed the Lazarus Pit and was in a Nanda Parbat prison. I swear, the woman has done everything for me and I just shred her to pieces and apparently get her locked up every damn time. I don't know how she's going to react when she sees me this time. I'm terrified."

It was quite possibly the most intimate information she'd ever heard the Captain share. It was history, emotion, vulnerability, fault, and fear. She could practically see the anxiety bleeding off of her friend. Zari was honestly at a loss as to how to handle the situation since most of their similarities were rooted in the fact that they veered away from the emotional. One thing was for sure, Mick hit the nail on the head when he read more into the blonde woman's relationship with the assassin. _Well, there's only one way to deal with that kind of anxiety, and that's to push through it._

"Look," Zari began as she leaned toward Sara and rested her forearms on her knees, "clearly you two have a complicated history." Sara rolled her eyes and stretched forward, hooking her hands over her toes. "But, if she's gone to prison for you twice, she's probably going to be happy to see you. Besides, it sounds like this time she went to save a little girl and not because of you directly." Zari glanced at the central computer monitor and realized the program had finished doing its thing. "You want to see what she's up to?"

At this point, Sara's head rested on her knees. _Who is that flexible?_ she thought. Zari saw the nod through the movement of long blonde hair splayed out over the woman's legs. Sara unfolded herself and hopped up, then moved to stand behind the dark-haired woman. She briefly placed her chin on the seated woman's head. "Thank you for listening. I'm not great at sharing, but I do kind of feel better." Zari nodded as she keyed in a number of final commands and prepped the secondary program to clip the footage from the loop. As Sara straightened and moved over the hacker's shoulder, a black and white image popped up on the screen.

"What in the world is she doing?" Zari asked as she tried to make out the actions of the figure in the middle of the screen. Regardless of the answer, she was glad to see the tall, dark-haired woman and began to record her activity, whatever it was.

Sara, on the other hand, recognized the movements instantly, having watched the graceful woman perform the motions hundreds of times. She remembered being absolutely transfixed the first time she saw the full sequence. "She's doing a Taijutsu warmup routine. It's an unarmed combat form of Ninjutsu. Nyssa studied with Soke Masaaki Hatsumi for years as a teenager and its rumored that Ra's al Ghul captured Dr. Hatsumi and brought him to Nanda Parbat to continue her teachings. She won't talk about it though, so who knows." Both women were mesmerized by the movements, the tall woman clad in a white tank top and the gray, cotton pants of her detention uniform.

Sara managed to whisper, "Hey, you're recording this for the loop thing, right?" Zari managed to nod in return. The hacker had never seen someone so obviously powerful move with such grace. Something about the motions made her think of her brother when he fought. He wasn't nearly as graceful, but the precision of the motions, the burst of speed that remained controlled, and the calm, focused look on the woman's face reminded her so much of Behrad. She immediately liked the woman.

Zari rubbed a hand over her face to break the trance and returned her attention to constructing the footage loop. The footage cut, she made sure she had return access into the security server by inserting a wormhole program and looked up at the focused face of the Captain. Watching the older woman perform the routine must have triggered something in the blonde woman as the anxious set to the woman's body had evaporated. _Like a human Zen garden, cool._

"Okay, we're good to go." Zari said and the compact woman next to her straightened, her game face clearly in place now. "Let me change really quick and I'll be ready to roll." Sara smiled, knowing the exact outfit the hacker would be wearing the next time she saw her. "Sounds good," she replied. "We'll sync comms before we take off." The Captain turned and headed out the door and down the steel hallway back to the bridge.

As Sara walked, she felt a calm settle over her. A familiar feeling she always experienced before a mission. She cleared her mind of everything extra. She mentally shut the compartments that held her fear and anxiety, her betrayal of Ava, the stress of Gideon's capture, everything. She keyed her ear piece that fed into the communication system of the Waverider. "Alright, team, Mick and Ray, you're with me on the bridge in five. Nate and Amaya, head out and be safe, I'll hail you when we're heading back. Let's go free us an assassin!"


	7. The Gideon Factor Part Seven

Hi, everybody! Sorry for the delayed update, this section ended up being a beast. I hope you're enjoying the story so far 😊 Please feel free to send reviews, feedback, or even just your views on the Nyssara/Avalance relationships!

 **Part Seven**

With Nick and Amaya on their way to some temple in Nepal and Zari set up in her hacker garb, her laptop tethered to the screens in the library, Sara, Mick and Ray piled into the Jump ship. Each of the three team members were dressed in a generic looking, light blue jumpsuit with a zipper that ran down the front. Sara glanced down at her getup as she settled into the Captain's seat of the smaller ship. "You know, I always like the name Chyler," she commented as she noticed the embroidered name on the chest of her outfit. "I also always liked the idea of having a job where I got to wear one of these. I mean, I always thought fighter pilot or something, but I'll take Timeship repair person."

Sara keyed the controls that fired the engines and input the coordinates to the Time Bureau, which she knew by heart at this point. She thought wistfully of the times she'd made the trip to surprise Ava with lunch or coffee, and the jitters she would get when the Time Bureau Director would call just to chat once their relationship took on a new tone. She wished again that things had gone differently, and she had her partner to bounce her developing ideas off of for what she knew was going to be a nearly impossible mission. One that would likely end in a face-off against Mallus. Sara only hoped Ava would come to terms with Nyssa's presence on the mission as few things made Sara more fearless than knowing the tall blonde woman was watching her back. _Especially when it comes to using the death totem._

Sara triggered the comms unit and was met by a brief crackle and Zari's voice. "Hey, you and the boys ready to roll?" The brown-haired woman asked, backed by the rapid-fire sounds of the keyboard as she was clearly occupied with whatever diversion plan she had in mind.

"Yeah, we're rolling out. You good there? What's your plan anyway?" Sara asked, having completely forgotten to follow-up on that aspect earlier. Granted, the question was born more from curiosity than concern or hesitation. The hacker would get the job done, Sara had no doubt.

The sound of laughter met the blonde woman's question. "It depends on a couple of things, mainly the level of security they have on their ships in the docking bay. I had a few minutes to check out the Time Bureau ship when it got to us, and I think I have an idea that will draw their attention away from the East Wing."

Having only slightly more information than she did before, the Captain shook her head and carried on with the launch sequence on the Jump ship. "Okay, well, just don't hurt anyone if you can help it, I guess. We're taking off. I'll hit you up when we land. If I can get into the vents without issue, just have the diversion on standby in case we need it to get back out." Sara glanced over her shoulder at her two teammates as she locked her shoulder harness. Both men met here eye and nodded as they also got situated.

"Hey, Boss," Mick began, "is it weird that we're going to kidnap your ex-lady friend from your current lady friend?" Sara completed the launch sequence and held both arms up, middle fingers fully extended on each hand, and they took off for the short trip to the Time Bureau.

Sara deftly landed the ship, cloaked and invisible to the world around it, behind the northeast corner of the Time Bureau building. The three Legends unloaded from the Jump ship, the delivery area empty around them as the schedule said it would be, and removed the fake cargo and dolly from the ship's storage compartment. They used the access badge provided by Gary to enter the Cargo elevator and arranged themselves with Mick leaning against the back wall, his dart gun secured in a holster along the push bar of the dolly. Sara and Ray stood along opposite side walls of the elevator, each with a dart gun secured in a shoulder holster under their jumpsuits and the jumpsuits remained unzipped a quarter of the way down to allow access to the weapons.

An instrumental version of _Cool for the Summer_ played as the Legends ascended to the fifth floor of the building, only one of two options allowed by the Cargo elevator. Sara momentarily wondered if Ava had anything to do with the elevator music, though clearly way below the Director's purview, Sara didn't dismiss the idea knowing how Ava enjoyed the little things. Plus, she clearly recalled catching the taller blonde woman singing _Sorry Not Sorry_ very unapologetically in the shower one morning. It was painfully endearing and led to a rather prolonged shower experience for both of the woman.

Sara smiled as she realized that not only had she been casually dancing to the Demi Lovato hit, but that Ray had joined her. It had surprised the Captain when she realized it was Ray who was always most willing to join in an impromptu dance party around the Waverider. And Nate, of course, but that fell in line with the man's grown child personality. It was easily one of the blonde woman's favorite memories the night that the entire legends team, to include Jax and Martin, had an all-out dance party after a particularly difficult mission. They took turns choosing the songs, though Gideon eventually took over as acting DJ for the group. Nothing was better than watching Jax teach Martin how to floss.

As the elevator finally reached the fifth floor, Sara bounced lightly on the balls of her feet and met the eyes of her two companions. "Okay, let's try not to seriously injure anyone. Let's just grab Nyssa and get out with as little attention as possible. I already dread explaining this to Ava." The two men nodded, the elevator doors slid open, and Mick stepped up to push the dolly toward the semi-circle service desk in the middle of the room.

Sara followed the larger man and instinctively let her eyes take in the room immediately as she departed the elevator. It was a large warehouse styled room with tall shelves that lined the entire north wall off to Sara's right. In the center of the room were two, semi-circle desks that would form a large circle if viewed from above, a swinging waist-high door on both the north and south sides to join the two desks together and allow access to the middle. Beyond the service desks, on the wall opposite the elevator, was a huge access hatch made of two doors that met in the middle, probably operated by some hydraulic system and clearly large enough to allow the transport of the larger parts required to repair the Time Bureau's fleet of ships.

The doors were currently closed, but Sara recalled from the blueprints that the ship repair area lay just beyond the doors and the large ship docking station was located beyond the repair bays. Along the southern wall, there were three workstations, each outfitted with a tool station and each in a state of slight disarray due to ongoing modifications. One station was currently occupied by a Time Bureau employee who wore a jumpsuit identical to those donned by the Legends.

The man looked up from his project, but only spared the three newcomers with a cursory glance as they were greeted by the two service desk members. Sara stepped to the right of her larger teammate to take the lead and greeted the Time Bureau employees with a smile. She lowered one arm behind her back and signaled for Ray to take the man at the workstation and Mick to take the left-hand guy at the service desk.

As she approached the desk, she addressed the two men and reached into her jumpsuit as though to retrieve paperwork for the delivery. "Hi there, we have a delivery for…it doesn't matter." The men looked at each other in confusion. She grasped the handle of her dart gun and signaled to her teammates. The Captain smoothly removed the weapon, aimed for the neck of the man she was responsible for and seamlessly pulled the trigger.

Ray and Mick followed suit and the three Time Bureau employees dropped like bags of sand to the floor in three successive thumps. "Alright, Ray, Mick, grab Ray's guy and put him behind the service desk with the other two." As the two men placed the unconscious Time Bureau employee out of sight from either entrance, Sara scanned the room. On the south wall, there were two access points into the ventilation system and she moved toward the one that would pass over the holding cells.

Sara keyed her comms unit earpiece, "Hey, Z, we're in and about to hop into the vents. How's it look on your end?" There was a brief pause before Zari replied, "Everything is good on my end. The security feed looks clear and Nyssa is still in the third holding cell down. Let me know when you're ready to drop and I'll start the loop."

Sara moved toward the access point, Mick and Ray went toward the workstation that was positioned just below the grated entry. Something about standing in the middle of a warehouse in a facility that you weren't permitted to be in was just unnatural. Sara deftly hopped onto the table and reached with a small screwdriver to begin detaching the metal cover to the ventilation system.

Ray quickly grabbed the blonde woman's ankle who very nearly stabbed him in the face with the screwdriver for his troubles. "Ray, what the fuck?"

"Captain, look," he pointed to a rectangular panel on the wall. "I know that symbol. It's a security panel. We used the same company at Palmer Tech." Sara dropped her arms to her sides and glanced at the resident thief. "Mick, what the hell? You didn't mention anything about security on the vent itself." The large man flipped open the hinged cover to the panel and exposed a security keypad.

"It wasn't in the schematics, Boss." He shrugged his shoulders in response and leaned closer to inspect the hardware. "There's nothing I can do about this kind. It has a built-in failsafe to keep you from tampering with the face of the input system. That sound right, Haircut?"

"Yeah, it's a top of the line system, Captain." Ray keyed his own comms earpiece. "Hey, Z, can you access the schematics for this thing? It's a CyberArk system, maybe a 3050 or 3128." He got on the table with a knee and peered through the slats on the metal grate. Behind the aluminum cover, he could clearly see green laser beams in an impassible pattern about a foot inside the ventilation duct. "Yeah, try a 3128, it has the laser sensors."

Suddenly, a memory clicked in the Captain's mind. "Shit. I knew about this," she said, clearly frustrated at her mistake. "About a month ago, Ava had to cancel a lunch with me because she had a meeting with some security people. One of their prisoners had temporarily escaped through the ventilation ducts, so she had the security measures increased on the infrastructure throughout the building. I bet that was Nyssa. Shit, shit, shit!" She smacked her hand against her thigh in obvious frustration. "Zari, this one's on me. Can you get us through this thing?"

Rapid keystrokes could be heard through the earpiece. "Uhm, give me a few minutes. We don't have time for me to crack the access code, it's a 9-digit randomized number provided by a key fob, but I think I can break the failsafe and then I can talk Ray through hacking it from the internals. Just… hang tight." The three Legends looked at each other, feeling very exposed just hanging out in the warehouse of the Time Bureau facility, as they made absolutely zero progress.

As if fate felt the temptation, the hydraulics on the oversized door creaked into motion. Sara and Ray quickly hopped off the table and crouched behind the workstation they'd just dismounted. Mick began to move toward the door and was stopped by an abrupt sound from the Captain. "Mick, get down! We don't know how many there will be." With a slight growl, the man moved back toward the wall and kneeled on the opposite side of the workstation Ray and Sara were hidden behind.

Three figures entered the large warehouse space. One was immediately recognizable by the slight shrill tone of his voice. _Gary._ Sara mouthed back to Ray, who rolled his eyes and remained otherwise motionless behind the Captain. The tall, thin man walked between two larger men, one in a standard-issue suit and the other in a service station jumpsuit. _Shit,_ Sara thought, hoping the service desk employee wouldn't be immediately curious at the unmanned workstation and abandoned desk.

As if he had a sixth sense, Gary, mid-sentence, almost immediately spotted Mick. His eyes widened, and the awkward man slightly tripped over his own feet, which caused him to bump into the service station employee. "Hey! Watch it you idiot!" The larger man hopped back from Gary, his arms spread wide and an incredulous look on his face. "You couldn't be more useless, I have no idea why the Director likes you so much," said the man in the suit. Gary's face became a rendition of a look Sara's English Bulldog would make when she'd had an accident. She bristled at the harsh treatment the men used with Gary.

To the Captain's surprise though, it was Mick that immediately jumped up and charged toward the three men. Gary instinctively squeaked and dropped to the ground. Sara cursed and darted toward the men as well. She took two long strides and leaped onto the service desk. Another step and she launched herself into a flip toward the men, her weapon drawn. She darted the man closest to her in the neck, completed the rotation, and allowed her knees to absorb the impact, lightly bouncing to bleed off the energy.

Mick had taken a more direct path as he ran at the man in the jumpsuit and whacked him across the temple with his dart gun. The man dropped to the ground with a groan and Mick then shot him in the neck with a dart. Sara smirked at her large teammate, "Why'd you hit him and then dart him?" She asked, curiously.

He shrugged a shoulder and offered Gary a hand up, "I hate bullies," he said simply. Sara returned the shrug and turned her attention to Gary, now on his feet next to Mick. "Honestly, Gary, I'm glad to see you." The thin man was slightly surprised, knowing the Captain was usually apathetic at the man's presence. Granted, their relationship was starting to improve with the reduced interference of the Time Bureau in Legends' activities.

The compact blonde moved toward Ray and the security panel under the ventilation access point. Gary and Mick followed the Captain, though Gary immediately raised his hands in front of him when he realized what Ray was looking at so intently. "U-u-uh, I'm not going to be any help," he offered to the blonde woman's back. He flinched at the scowl she tossed over her shoulder in his direction. "I-I-I mean I can't help. Not that I wouldn't help if I could," he quickly explained.

Sara stopped and turned to face the thin man, her hands on her hips and a questioning look on her face, complete with a raised eyebrow. All the members of her team would immediately recognize the 'bullshit' face. "No, really, I don't have access to the key fob. Only Director Sharpe has one and she keeps it in her personal safe when she's gone, which I'm sure you know she currently is."

Sara shrugged her shoulders in response and tossed one hand flippantly in the air. "Sure, yeah, of course I knew that," she obviously lied. "Okay, so that's the only one? Locked away in my girlfriend's personal safe in her office?" Sara mentally weighed her options and keyed her comms unit again. "Z, did you hear that? Any progress on your end? Any chance we can get through this thing without having to irreconcilably invade my partner's privacy?" she asked, hopefully. She really and truly wanted to avoid crossing that particular line, though she could see the burning excitement at the proposition in her resident thief's eyes.

She could already see the wheels turning in the man's head. _Probably trying to decide what brand of safe she uses._ Zari responded, "Uhm, yeah, okay. I've located the schematics and I've created a hard bypass for the external security on the panel. Ray, I've sent the program to your Atom suit. You should be able to input into the side access port on the panel and then the program will theoretically take about 30 seconds to deactivate the security. After that, it'll be too easy to bypass the internals and deactivate the sensors."

Sara couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Mick was obviously dejected. Ray quickly removed his Atom suit and stripped out of his jumpsuit to change. Gary was a new level of anxious. "Uh, begging your pardon, Captain Lance, but I really can't be here for this. I-I-I mean, surely you don't need me for anything…ri-ri-right?" Sara agreed with the Time Bureau employee that the less he knew, the better.

"Yeah, okay, get out of here," she replied, with a slight shooing motion. "Hey, and keep your mouth shut about this, yeah?"

Gary raised a thumbs up over his head as he moved toward the smaller, side access door that would return him to the service bay. He sincerely hoped no one would wonder where his previous companions were, and released a held breath as he made it to the atrium without question.

Ray was in his Atom suit and keyed the micro-computer on the arm of the suit. He quickly loaded the program Zari had sent and was immensely grateful once again at the processing upgrades the hacker had offered once she'd deemed him worthy of her talents. He removed the wireless auxiliary plug from its place on the side of the micro-computer and inserted it into the proper plug on bottom of the panel. "Okay, Z, it's plugged in." Ray could hear the keystrokes in his earpiece, and what felt like a moment later, the hacker replied. "Alright, you're good to go."

Ray popped the faceplate off the security panel and peered at the wiring. It looked vaguely familiar in comparison to the model of security he'd used at Palmer Tech. "It looks pretty straightforward," he mentioned to the now looming shadow of Mick Rory standing next to his shoulder. "Hey, Zari, will a standard 1 to 3 bypass work?" he asked, always slightly surprised that the woman could hear anything over the industrial metal he could hear in the background.

While Mick, Ray, and Zari all understood what the finely groomed man was asking, Sara took the opportunity to ditch her jumpsuit, knowing she'd have nothing to offer. So, she now sat cross-legged, her hair tied up in a bun and her head propped up by a hand as her elbow rested on a knee, trusting her team to deal with the current obstacle. She heard Zari's confirmation, smirked as Ray and Mick briefly fought over who could strip the wires faster, which Ray quickly won by reminding Mick of the two men he was allowed to shoot thanks to Ray's sleeping darts, and then let her mind wander as the anxiety of seeing Nyssa again started to build.

 _She could almost feel the anxiety as though she were in the moment once more. It was the first time the two women sparred following the unexpected development of their relationship. Granted, Sara had known for a long time that she was most certainly infatuated with the experienced, powerful, deadly woman. But, to have the dark-haired woman take a legitimate interest in the younger blonde had come as a welcome surprise to Sara._

 _The sparring room that Nyssa preferred in Nanda Parbat was really a glorified cave of sorts. It was on one of the lowest levels and could be reached by a secret passageway from a hidden stone doorway behind a hand-embroidered tapestry in the dark-haired woman's sleeping quarters. The open cavern was lit with torches ensconced along the uneven surface of the rock walls. Stone pillars were sporadically located throughout the cavern and offered support to the high ceiling of the cave. Each pillar was adorned with elaborate carvings of runes believed to offer protection to the space. Sara had once asked Nyssa who had carved the pillars, but the woman only responded vaguely with 'ancient people'._

 _Nyssa was dressed as she always was when they sparred, a black, sleeveless gambeson that offered some protection for her torso and stopped mid-thigh. It had a tapered waist and was closed up the front with garnet clasps. Completed with black leggings and a red sash around the woman's waist, the dark-haired woman often reminded Sara of a black panther that she'd seen in the zoo as a child. The same restless energy exuded from the woman and the keen intelligence in her dark eyes spoke of a deeper understanding somehow._

 _Sara was similarly dressed but chose a deep blue gambeson with a black sash and black leggings. Both women sparred barefoot, something that had taken Sara some time to get used to on the sometimes rough, stone floor. She was glad she'd had some time to toughen up her feet in Lian Yu and on their travels back to Nanda Parbat._

 _Sara remembered the anticipation as she faced the taller woman. As her clear blue eyes met the woman's deep brown, a chill went down her spine and she had to take a deep, cleansing breath as the woman had taught her. Nyssa appeared to lean casually on her bo staff, but Sara could see the muscles twitch in the woman's well-defined jaw. As always, Nyssa waited for Sara to make her first move, letting the compact blonde woman choose which technique she wanted to practice this session._

 _Sara took a deep breath, hopped twice on the balls of her feet, and held her bo staff with one arm, over her shoulder so the weapon was positioned behind her back. It was a technique she was growing to prefer as it allowed her to hide her offensive moves from her opponent and supported her sometimes aggressive fighting style. She smirked at the older woman who nodded in response and straightened. Nyssa moved to stand with her bo staff across her body, her dominant side slightly higher._

 _Sara quickly lunged at the taller woman, her first round of strikes being easily deflected. She realized she was more sensitive to the dark-haired woman's smell than she remembered. A slightly spicy scent that Sara had never smelled before, but now easily associated with her mentor. As the women spun and entered into another pass, the compact blonde woman became more determined. She had finally started feeling confident with her weapon of choice and had added some more complex movements to her repertoire. In fact, she'd been fitting in extra practice during one of her scheduled breaks with one of the guards in an effort to challenge the dark-haired woman._

 _The blonde used her lower center of gravity to her advantage and tried a new sweeping maneuver that had worked with her guard partner. However, the dark-haired woman simply grinned at Sara as she deftly hopped over the attempt and decided to go on the offensive. Sara immediately felt the shift in her mentor's energy. Nyssa's eyes took on a glint and her body acquired an energy that Sara could now feel her body respond to in an entirely new way._

 _Nyssa was beautiful when she fought. Sara had known that for a long time having spent hours watching the woman practice during their return trip from Lian Yu. The blonde woman found herself fighting to defend herself as she was quickly getting distracted by how the fire played off the woman's tanned skin and the shifting muscles of her arms. She held her own for a few passes by her mentor, but finally lost all hope when the taller woman took a step and did a lazy flip over her head and landed behind her._

 _Sara was able to move her staff behind her to deflect the strike, but when she turned to follow-up with an attack of her own, she was met with dark eyes that took on a red hue with the firelight, and a feral grin much closer than she thought she'd be. The compact blonde couldn't fight the thrill those eyes sent down her spine and she released one hand from her own staff, grabbed her mentor's, and threw both weapons to the ground._

 _Without words, the dark-haired woman grabbed the compact blonde by the shoulders, spun them both around, and pressed Sara up against one of the carved pillars. She pinned both of the younger woman's arms over her head, holding them by the wrists with one powerful hand. Nyssa met the clear blue eyes, almost translucent in the torchlight, and slowly undid each of the onyx clasps down the front of the smaller woman's gambeson. The dark-haired woman pressed one thigh between Sara's lean, muscular legs, and smirked as the blonde woman pushed her hips out to increase the contact along the length of their bodies._

Sara realized she must have spaced out for longer than she thought as her two teammates were both staring at her and Zari's voice was calling her name in her ear, clearly not for the first time. Her elbow slipped off her knee and she snapped her head up. "Huh? Wait. What?" She asked as she snapped herself back into the present. _Right. Saving my ex-girlfriend. Fuck._ "Are you ready for me?" she asked as she tucked her legs back under her and stood on the worktable.

Mick and Ray looked at each other and returned their gaze to the Captain. "Yeah, Boss, you're up." Mick said, willing to ignore the woman's obvious distraction. Ray was slightly more forward, "Captain, is everything okay? Are you sure you don't want me to go get her?" he asked.

Sara momentarily stretched her arms overhead and then waved her teammates off. "No, no, I'm good. Was just thinking about… sparring. I'm fine. Lasers are off? Security clear? I'm good to go?"

"Yeah," Zari responded in the blonde woman's ear, "everything should be clear. Again, just click the comms three times to let me know when you're ready to drop and I'll start the loop. The lasers are off until we turn them back on and the guards appear to be in their normal places. You're good."

"Okay then." Sara took a deep breath and removed the grate that covered the ventilation system and handed it back to Ray. She surveyed the duct that was located around shoulder height, rectangular and probably three feet wide and two or two and a half feet high. The compact blonde woman figured she'd have plenty of space, and even Nyssa's larger form should be able to clear the walls of the duct without issue. "I'll be right back. Be ready to move," she said to her team as she easily lifted herself into the vent duct.

Clad in her black, close-fitting attire, with her hair contained, she was able to quickly and smoothly move through the dark ducts. The light from the warehouse behind her faded and she tried to use a recurring ridge that she felt under her fingertips to judge how far she'd traveled. Being a government building, it was constructed without a lot of wasted space, so she came upon the first vent after only a couple minutes of progress. Sara approached the vent that should be over the first holding cell and paused above it to peer through the grated opening a moment to see how the cells were setup from this new perspective.

It appeared as though each of the cells were laid out in the same fashion. A small twin-sized bed on one wall and a small sink in the opposite corner. There weren't chairs or other facilities of any kind, and Sara recalled seeing a bathing/latrine facility further down the wing she was traversing over. _I wonder how long it took Nyssa to use that to escape?_ Feeling good about the layout, Sara continued her journey, being careful to maintain control of her body to avoid making any unwarranted noises.

She traveled another couple of feet and was able to see the light being emitted from the access vent that would allow her to drop into Nyssa's room. The Captain took a moment to key her comms unit to notify Zari that she was ready for the hacker to begin the video feed loop. Sara steadied her breathing and continued forward with a quiet determination. As she perched herself over the vent, she could make out the top of Nyssa's head, her legs crossed beneath her, and her hands each closed in a loose fist on her knees. She was on the bed, almost directly under where Sara's feet now were. Sara wondered for a moment what the dark-haired woman was thinking about or if she was just meditating to pass the time.

Knowing it would be dangerous for even her to just drop into the room, she let out a soft whistle that she knew the assassin would easily identify. The sounds had barely left her lips when she saw the dark head snap back and the woman's deep eyes locked onto the vent. Nyssa stretched her legs in front of her and moved to stand in the middle of the room. The tall woman faced the back wall and conveniently blocked the view from the small window in the door of the holding cell, on the off chance the outside guard glanced their way.

 _It's like she can read my mind sometimes,_ Sara thought to herself. She gently eased the latches that held the vent closed from inside the ventilation duct. Careful not to let the metal scrape any more than absolutely necessary, she used the small chain that had been installed to hold the access gate open. She poked her blonde head down through the gate and was met with a whole-hearted smile on her former lover's face with one of her own, her clear blue eyes higher than the tall woman's own.

A spark in the deep eyes, "Beloved."

"Hey there," Sara replied with a wink. She pulled her head back up through the hole and smoothly suspended herself above the opening as she allowed her feet to pass through. Sara landed in front of Nyssa with a short hop. The two women simply stared at each other for a moment, waiting to see what the other would do. Sara could feel her heartrate pick up as she stood face to face with her former lover. Upon meeting the dark-haired woman's eyes and seeing the radiant smile she was greeted with, Sara knew Nyssa held no ill will toward her for yet another imprisonment paid as the price for having loved the blonde woman.

Sara cast her eyes down and began softly, "Listen, I'm sorry you're in here because of me." She looked up into dark eyes as she felt Nyssa's fingertips, gentle against the skin of her cheek, as the older woman tucked a misplaced blonde hair behind her well-formed ear. Then an easy pressure on her chin as the taller woman tilted her head back, forcing Sara to meet her gaze. Even under the fluorescent light and generally unfavorable living conditions, Nyssa was beautiful.

Nyssa took a step closer and moved her other hand up to the back of Sara's neck. Sara's breath caught in her throat at the feeling of the strong hands on the sensitive skin of her neck. She knew Nyssa felt it by the smirk on the woman's face. _Fuck, she's always known the affect she has on me._ Sara returned the look with a grin of her own as she instinctively placed her hands on the woman's well-formed hips. Through the thin fabric of the jumpsuit, rough under her fingertips, Sara could feel the reassuring solidness of the assassin.

"Beloved, I have always gotten into trouble just fine on my own. This is not your fault." Nyssa eased the younger woman forward with a steady pressure on the back of her neck and softly kissed her forehead. She felt the woman's warm breath as she sighed against her collarbone. The compact body moved into hers and she felt the blonde's powerful hands slide to the small of her back. It had been so long since she'd had physical contact of any kind or felt any real emotion from her isolated place in the holding facility. To have it be from her beloved was so surreal that her already extraordinary senses were heightened. On the edge of her hearing, she picked up a slight whirring noise that was out of place and getting closer.

The taller woman regretfully lifted her head and felt the increase in pressure of the strong hands on her back, holding her solid form in place. She filtered out the eucalyptus mint of the blonde woman's hair, a smell that would always bring up vivid memories of the younger woman. Nyssa briefly closed her eyes and focused on the sound she'd heard. As she pinpointed its location, her eyes immediately went to the ventilation duct once more. She was momentarily torn, knowing if she made too drastic a movement she'd risk drawing the attention of her ever-present watchers from the security booth and entryway, but every instinct screaming to protect her Beloved. Instead, she pulled the younger woman's body closer and took a step back toward the door to put more distance between the blonde woman and the sound she could now track moving down the ventilation duct.

Sara heard the change in the woman's heartbeat and felt the shift in the grip of the long fingers on her neck. She relaxed her grip from around the woman's waist, glanced up, and noticed the focused expression on the taller woman's face. "Nyssa, what is it?" Sara felt her own body tense in preparation for whatever had triggered the assassin.

"Beloved, something followed you down the ventilation duct. I can hear a whirring sound coming toward us, but I cannot identify its source." Nyssa slowly reached into the elastic waistband of her loose, cotton-blend pants and removed what could only be described as a shank. Sara raised both eyebrows and grabbed the woman's wrist, bringing the makeshift weapon into the light between them. The long fingers held what was once a toothbrush that had been filed into a point and then enhanced by a razorblade held in place with what looked like a bed spring. Nyssa shrugged in response as she freed her arm from the woman's grip around her wrist, her eyes never leaving the duct opening.

"Nyssa, there's no way my team let something follow me down the vent. Seriously." At the mention of her teammates, Sara immediately knew the source of the sound. She waved off the questioning look on the assassin's face and keyed her earpiece, previously set on silent to avoid detection while she traversed the duct system. "Ray, is that you coming down the duct? What the hell, Man?" She gently scolded the miniaturized man, though she knew she'd taken too long and he was probably right to have been worried. She wondered for a moment if the man had seen any of the moment shared between the women.

Ray released the atom mechanism on his suit and abruptly appeared in front of the two women. Nyssa instinctively pushed Sara behind her as she shoved Ray against the far wall, the shank now at the man's throat. Sara, having felt the surge of adrenalin from the taller woman, quickly wrapped one arm around the woman's waist and grabbed the arm that threatened Ray, pulling it back down against the woman's side. "Nyssa!" she exclaimed through clenched teeth, as loud as was possibly safe.

Ray pressed himself against the wall, his hands raised in a defensive position, as he trusted his Captain to diffuse the impressively fast, dark-haired woman. "Uh, hello, I'm Ray," he said and offered his hand to the contained woman.

Nyssa reached behind herself with her free arm and patted the blonde woman on the side. It was a sign they'd developed long ago after a series of particularly challenging missions the women undertook together. Upon their conclusion, Nyssa's reflexes were hair-triggered and she'd had to rely on the compact blonde woman to reign her in on more than one occasion when startled by a store clerk or some other mundane interaction within normal society. Before Sara, she would have simply gone into seclusion until she had herself back under control, but the younger blonde woman had insisted on trying to find her own sanity again by immersing herself in a 'normal' life for a time. So, the dark-haired woman tried her best to compromise by joining her blonde lover and meditating as often as possible.

"I am sorry for my abruptness," Nyssa said and bypassed the man's hand to grasp his forearm, a mannerism favored by the League to show that no blades were hidden under one's sleeve. "My name is Nyssa Raatko. Thank you for your assistance in freeing me," she looked back at the woman behind her. "At least, I assume that's why you're here?" Sara made a mental note to question why the woman had abandoned her father's name, something that had defined the assassin's identity for so long.

Sara lightly rubbed the woman's back in front of her. "Yeah, of course it is. I mean, there's more to it than that, but we better get out of here before the guards catch on or Mick starts beating people up. Ray, go ahead and shrink and get out of here, we'll be right behind you." The man keyed in the command on the wrist pad of his Atom suit and was on his way.

"That is phenomenal," the dark-haired woman commented on Ray's disappearance as Sara moved ahead of her to stand under the duct opening. "Do you need a boost, Beloved?" Nyssa asked with a smirk and her hands on her hips, though she made no move to help the shorter woman.

Sara quickly smacked the woman on her shoulder, and shook her hand out, figuring it probably stung her more than the solid form beside her. "I asked you for a hand up one fucking time," she mumbled to herself. The holding cells had 9' ceilings, but the compact woman bent her knees and surged upward, her arms outstretched to easily catch the edge of the opening. Sara set her grip on the ledge and smoothly pulled herself back into the ventilation duct and moved forward enough to give the taller woman space to follow.

Sara watched behind her and spotted the strong hands of the assassin grab the edge. It only took a moment before the dark head cleared the opening and the woman was pulling herself up into the duct behind her. Sara was startled as her earpiece chirped in her ear, the emergency signal to re-establish communications. _Shit. I shouldn't have wasted so much time getting her out of there._ She keyed the comms unit, "Zari, what's up? We're in the duct and about to head back now," she informed the hacker on the other end.

"Yeah, I know," Zari replied, a hurried tone in her voice. "I just fucking saw Nyssa's feet clear the opening on the security feed. More importantly, the security guards saw them too! They've already triggered the silent alarm. They're going to try to snag you guys. Get the fuck out of there, now! I'll try to distract them." The hacker turned her full attention back to the code she'd been working on while her teammates retrieved the League member. With a few final keystrokes, she initiated the first part of her plan and pulled up the security feed from the docking bay at the Time Bureau.

The hacker took a moment to mentally pat herself on the back as she could see the engines of all the Time Bureau ships initiate at once. "Ha! Whoever thought putting the remote access to the Time Bureau fleet in a cloud-based application is ridiculous," she said aloud. Even if the security surrounding the application had taken her almost two hours to break through. _Now for stage two._ Though she was momentarily distracted by a new frequency alert from the comms system. "Yeah, what's up, Nate? I'm a little busy."

"Yeah, uh, I think we broke this ship. Can you help us?" the confused man asked.

"Oh, shit. Uhm, that's me. You guys are just going to have to chill there for a few. The Captain and the boys ran into a hiccup and I temporarily took control of all the Time Bureau ships. If I release your ship, they'll know it's us for sure," she explained to Nate as she grabbed a thumb drive that had a short program she'd coded the night before and plugged it into her laptop.

"Oh! Uhm, okay. Cool. I mean, we'd offer to help, but I guess there's not much we can do. Just holler when we're good to go," he said, both concerned and maybe a little excited to prolong their adventure.

Zari re-synced her comms unit with Sara and the crew's channel and flicked through the various security feeds to check the progress. She watched as one of the security guards from the office approached the large warehouse from the side access door, his weapon drawn. "Mick, you got one coming your way," she informed her teammate and watched him begin to fiddle with some of the equipment on the workstation in front of him. The hacker couldn't make out what the guard said as he entered the warehouse, but she heard Mick reply, "Nah, man, everything's… fine here. I'm just replacing the seal on this hyperdrive gasket."

Zari was shocked at the man's smooth reply and whispered in his ear, "Nice one, where'd you learn that?" The guard slowly moved toward the larger man and responded, still not entirely convinced, but moving more confidently at the normality of the situation in the warehouse. That is, until he passed the side opening and saw behind the service desk. Zari could clearly make out the "What the fuck" on the man's lips as he spotted the unconscious employees on the floor behind the desk. She watched as Mick raised his weapon up in one smooth motion and planted one of the darts in the security guard's neck. "I helped Jax fix one once. Well, I drank beer and watched him fix one," he commented as the guard dropped to the floor.

"Shit, shit, shit." Sara cursed, her standard self-scolding response. She quickly began moving down the duct back toward her team, suddenly super aware of the lasers they'd previously de-activated and took a moment to hope that they were just alarm lasers and not, well, slicing lasers. Over her shoulder, she addressed the woman that moved along with a sinuous grace just behind her. "Hey, you may have to use your shank after all. Something must have glitched with the security loop and they saw your feet coming up."

Thankfully, without the need to worry about making noise, the return trip was much faster, and the two women quickly made it to the end of the tunnel. Sara slipped out and dropped back onto the workstation table and deftly hopped off to make room for Nyssa to follow. Nyssa shortly joined the small team and nodded toward the large man she had yet to meet. Mick replied with a quick once-over and a glance toward the compact blonde woman that now stood beside him, who simply said, "Shut up," and smacked the man in the back of the head.

Zari continued to scan the security feeds and watched as a number of additional security people and the docking bay folks scrambled to figure out what was going on. A few of the security personnel began to move toward the warehouse, where she knew Sara and Nyssa had just joined Ray and Mick. The hacker pulled up the new program and keyed the execution code to activate it. She laughed to herself as she heard the music through her teammates' communications units and watched all of the Time Bureau personnel look around in confusion as each ship in the docking bay now broadcasted the same song.

As Sara was about to lead the team back across the large repair warehouse, all four team members quickly hit the deck as a loud noise began in the docking bay. It took a moment for the racket to filter into sound and Sara looked over at her teammates in confusion. She keyed her comms, "Z, what the hell is happening over there? Is that… Def Leppard?! And are those ship engines?"

From Mick's position on the floor, she heard the man comment, " _Pour Some Sugar on Me_ … I lost my virginity to that song."

Surprisingly, Nyssa replied, "I realized I was a lesbian to that song," and instantly made a friend out of the gruff man who couldn't restrain a burst of laughter.

"Sara, don't worry about it. Just get out of there, you don't have much time," Zari replied as she watched the same three guards from before shake off the distraction of the music and start to move back toward the storage warehouse.

The three Legends and the assassin scrambled to their feet and Sara waved the key card in front of the sensor to access the elevator. The light flashed red and Sara cursed, but Nyssa grabbed her by the wrist and led the three Legends to a stairway exit next to the elevator. The dark-haired woman threw the door open and moved quickly through it, her shank out and ready. Sara followed behind her and Mick brought up the rear. Sara signaled with a whistle and Nyssa took the stairs leading downward, verbal communication virtually unnecessary between the two women.

As they quickly cleared the first set of stairs, Zari chimed in, "Sara, you're going to have company on the way down. Manageable, but coming at you on the next floor."

Nyssa moved with a lithe grace and impressive quickness down the stairs. Sara gave the signal for incoming just as the dark-haired woman approached the door that simultaneously opened toward the dark-haired woman. The assassin immediately cross-kicked the knee of the first guard that made his way onto the platform of the staircase. She struck his wrist as he went down and caused his weapon to clatter to the floor. Sara flew off the stairs behind her, throwing the full weight and speed of her body into the metal door that collided with the man who tried to follow his companion.

Sara landed and turned just in time to throw up a forearm block that stopped the dark-haired woman's forward motion which would have embedded the shank in the guard's neck. Instead, Sara kneed the man in the head, knocking him unconscious. She turned and faced her former lover, her hand resting on the dark-haired woman's hip, "We can't kill them."

Sara saw Mick dart the two fallen guards and nodded in the direction of the stairs for the two men to precede them the rest of the way down. Nyssa's face was set in a stubborn and determined manner that Sara knew all too well, and she had a tough time blaming the woman on this one. "Look, I know they've had you locked up here and that sucks, but I'll explain later. Just please don't kill any of the Time Bureau guys." Nyssa gestured toward the stairway and simply replied, "As you wish."

The Legends were thankful that the lower floors were occupied by much less portentous government agencies, and they only encountered one more team of security personnel in the final two floors of their descent. They burst through the exit door at the ground level and turned toward the corner of the building, since the stairs put them on the east side of the structure. They pressed themselves against the brick wall, Sara back at the head of their formation, and she keyed her comms unit once more. "Zari, open the hatch. How's our escape route looking?"

"You're clear to the ship if you go right now," she responded as the group sprinted toward the lowering hatch. Zari continued to provide the status update as they ran toward the ship, "I still have control of their ships, but Ava's about three minutes out. Sorry, I didn't realize she uses a separate standalone system for her ship. Super smart, really," the hacker said, with a note of admiration. "I tried to hack it, but it's a style of code I've never seen before and there just isn't enough time," she informed the Captain as the group made it onto the ship.

The two men took the seats they were accustomed to and Sara pointed at a seat on her right for Nyssa as she quickly strapped in to the Captain's chair. The blonde woman didn't waste any time as she efficiently fired the engines and worked through the launch sequence for the ship. It took a few moments longer than normal since she had to perform all the functions manually, but she figured they'd still be gone before Ava returned, as long as she didn't utilize the same path out that the Time Bureau Director used coming in. Sara quickly reached up and pulled down the ship's communication panel so she could receive updates while keeping both hands free to pilot the ship.

Zari's face appeared in the comms window. "Hey, can you tell which route Ava's taking coming back to the Time Bureau? I'd really like to avoid running into her." The Captain heard a simultaneous scoff from both Ray and Mick and gave the men the finger with one hand while she continued to input their destination and route with the other.

"Sorry, Boss, she cloaked her ship about four minutes ago. She was hauling ass southwest the last time I was able to pick her up though. She was coming straight toward you, so maybe do some fancy flying when you take off," the hacker caught the eye of the dark-haired assassin over Sara's shoulder and gave a casual wave. "Uh, hi there, I'm Zari Tomaz," she greeted the woman. Nyssa inclined her head in greeting and replied in a smoothly accented voice that made Zari feel feelings inside, "Pleasure to meet you, I am Nyssa Raatko."

Sara took the throttle, triggered the pressure chamber, and looked back at her former lover. "Stop distracting her, I need her focused," she said with a wink in the woman's direction.

"Ta-er al-Sahfer, la 'aerif ma aldhy tatahadath eanh," Nyssa replied with a smirk, having been told many times by the blonde woman how mesmerizing it was to listen to her speak Arabic.

"Oh please," Sara replied, "you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Zari laughed and turned her attention back to the monitors in front of her, "Yellow Bird, huh?" she questioned the dark-haired woman who was momentarily startled by the hacker's understanding. The Captain looked from Nyssa to the hacker on the comms monitor. "Yeah, yeah, I'm focused. Shut up."

"Alright, fingers crossed. We're heading back." With that, the Captain slowly hit the throttle, though every fiber in her being urged her to go faster. Sara was forced to move slow and steady through their departure to maintain a smooth appearance of the cloaked ship in the surrounding atmosphere. She only had a moment to decide which route to take and instinctively turned the ship away from where she knew the Waverider was ultimately located. Although it was more challenging to pilot the ship manually in its cloaked status since you simply had to know where you were on the radar, she decided it was worth the test of her piloting skills. With the knowledge that her current lover was mere moments away, Sara's knuckles were white on the throttle and she dug her nails into her palm on her other hand, the restraint of their slow escape driving her insane.

They had traveled for approximately 25 seconds before Zara's head reappeared on the comms monitor. "Good choice on the route, Sara, it sounds like Ava just landed at the Time Bureau. Hey, anyone want to take a bet on how long before she shows up here?"

"I'll get in on that action," Mick replied. "Haircut, calculate the odds table and lay out the over under."

"Sure, give me just one minute. Hey, are we applying the Legends factor on this one?" the square-jawed man was forced to bat a flying pen out of the air, the Captain finally losing control.

"All of you, Shut. Up." _Oh, fuck this,_ she said to herself, and the ship burst into motion.


	8. The Gideon Factor Part Eight

Greetings, Team! Sorry it's been a hot minute. I recently returned home from a contractor stint in Afghanistan and it took me a bit to hit the groove again. Also, have you ever written a chunk of a story and gone back to re-read it only to realize you'd gone completely off the rails of where you planned to take it? Yeah, that happened. So, I saved a long flashback scene that didn't have a place and re-wrote the segment. Maybe I'll post it as a stand-alone short or something. Anyway, it's awesome to be home and back to regular updates! Thanks for your patience.

 **The Gideon Factor**

Part Eight

The trip back to the Waverider was filled with a tense silence, mostly driven by the unwavering sharpness the ship's Captain portrayed as she tried to process the inevitability of the fight she knew would find her sooner rather than later in the form of her beautiful and betrayed partner. Sara also knew she'd have to find a way to get the two women to work together, if only for the duration of the mission. There were so many uncertainties, upcoming risks, and emotional minefields in her near future that the village in Tibet where Rip Hunter found her looked very appealing. _Besides, there was that one red-head there that swore she'd wait for me._ The blonde shook her head in exasperation at herself, but at least the memories broke her psyche's freefall into despair. Refocused, Sara began to mentally examine the situation from a more useful perspective. _First things first, explain the situation to Nyssa and get her on board with taking on the League to save Gideon. Without her and the map, we're nowhere._

From where she sat, Nyssa could see the tension in the compact blonde woman's muscular frame. The dark-haired woman watched as Sara absentmindedly rolled a gold coin across her knuckles, her expression introspective. Nyssa knew the coin had been a good luck token given to her by her father years ago, and it had somehow made it through a ship wreck, League training, the woman's phase as the Black Canary, and apparently time travel. It pleased Nyssa to see that the hint of innocence remained in the now accomplished and confident woman, something Nyssa had always known was there, even if the blonde woman herself thought she'd lost it to the darkness long ago.

 _Nyssa had noticed that the woman's sense of mortality and self-deprecation were worse when she was lonely. She'd also noticed that the blonde woman's bouts of self-doubt and hesitation to volunteer for routine missions had increased over the last six months or so. At first Nyssa thought it was simply because the increasingly skilled Ta-er al-Sahfer craved a challenge, so she'd only take the most difficult missions. Maybe for a while that was the case. However, the periods of depression that plagued the blonde woman after a successful mission made the assassin's mentor believe that perhaps she took those missions in hopes that she'd have an excuse to fail._

 _Nyssa also began to notice signs in their personal lives as well. Instead of spending the night together after a mission to… process what happened, Sara began spending that time meditating or, if it was a particularly brutal mission, exercising herself into exhaustion. The couple had always had a difficult time communicating, though Nyssa was far more open with the younger woman than with anyone in her past. But, for some reason, the woman was unable to bridge the gap that had grown between them. Until, one night, the blonde woman was just gone. Hindsight was an amazing thing, and the dark-haired woman regularly wished she had noticed the signs and ran away with the younger woman before she was ghosted._

Now, as she watched the telltale fidgeting that often accompanied the blonde woman's problem-solving process, Nyssa was determined to help the woman through the difficult place she'd apparently found herself in. The assassin always knew that Sara blamed herself for a number of negative things that had taken place in Nyssa's life, but what she seemed to refuse to accept was the fact that Nyssa would have simply imploded long ago without the strength of the blonde woman's character behind her. That Nyssa was raised in a soulless place and had grown with such a skewed understanding of emotion that she never would have allowed herself even a hint of vulnerability with anyone if it hadn't been for Sara's single-minded effort to break down Nyssa's barriers. So, not only did Nyssa not blame Sara for leaving to save her soul, after the initial shock and heartbreak passed, Nyssa was exceedingly proud that she had. The assassin found herself hellbent to support her in whatever capacity she could to ensure that the Captain's quest to live in the light was a success. _I owe her that. I owe her everything._

The Captain keyed the comms unit as the Waverider became visible in the swirling green of the Temporal Zone. "Hey, Zari, we're pulling in. Go ahead and drop the Time Bureau ships and tell Nate and Amaya to head back in about an hour. On the off-chance Ava's preoccupied enough to not put it together immediately, I don't want the timing to line up too perfectly." _Sometimes it a real pain in the ass to date someone as intelligent as that woman._ "Plus, I'll need some time to get Nyssa up to speed and maybe lay out the rough sketch of a plan." With that, she glanced at the assassin, relieved to see the understanding look on the woman's face. _Not that I wouldn't have busted her out just because, but better she knows there's something bigger going on_.

"Sure thing, Sara. The docking station is ready when you are, and I'll give Nate and Amaya a heads up," the hacker replied, apparently having moved on to Justin Timberlake once her work was done with the Time Bureau.

Sara keyed the landing sequence and seamlessly returned the smaller ship to its place on the side of the Waverider. As the passengers unloaded and moved through the airlock chamber into the Waverider, Nyssa took in her surroundings as she listened to Sara organize her team. The ship was impressive and unlike anything the assassin had experienced before. The dark-haired woman appreciated the clean, smooth lines of the steel alloy as they made their way down the hall, and momentarily paused as the team moved ahead of her into the open bridge. Nyssa smiled at the playful banter between Sara and her crew, and took a second to appreciate the confident bounce to the blonde woman's movement. _She has always been a powerhouse._

The Legends moved into the library to find Zari sprawled sideways across one of the overstuffed brown leather chairs with a laptop propped up by her thighs. The woman's smooth, tan skin on display from under her typical black tank top. She looked over her shoulder as she finally heard the group approach and turned down the volume, setting her laptop on a side table by her ankles. The hacker gracefully stood, her hair a messy bun on top of her head and sweatpants low on her hips. She gently smacked Mick on the shoulder as the large man pointed with his thumb in Nyssa's direction as he passed by, eyebrow raised as he said, "She's hot," at a not very subtle volume.

Nyssa's presence had an impact, even in the issued jumpsuit of the Time Bureau. Zari had seen the woman a few times through the security feed, but there was something about the dark eyes and hint of a smirk across the woman's well-formed lips that made Nyssa's obvious strength carry more weight. As the assassin gracefully moved up the steps into the room and walked in Zari's direction, Nyssa touched her right hand to her chest and extended it to the hacker. "As-salamu 'alaykum" she greeted the woman in the standard Arabic manner.

Zari grasped the woman's forearm and replied, "Wa'alaykumu as-salam. It's nice to officially meet you." As the lithe woman met Nyssa's eyes, she thought about how her brother would have been head-over-heels for this woman. Nyssa graciously replied, "The pleasure is mine, I assure you," and subtly dipped her head toward Zari. The lithe woman took a shallow breath and smiled, uncharacteristically rattled, and realized that anyone with a pulse would be. As the hacker stepped away, she cast her eyes back at Mick and mouthed _What in the actual fuck?_ to which the burly man just shrugged.

Sara rolled her eyes at her teammates' responses to her former lover, having watched similar reactions in people around the world. "Okay, now that introductions are out of the way," she looked pointedly at her hacker friend, "Nyssa, come with me and I'll show you where you can change. I think I found some clothes that will work for now and we'll fabricate something for you later. Unfortunately, we're a little short on time, so I'll fill you in on what's going on. I could really use your help." The taller woman nodded in acknowledgement but raised her hand to stop the blonde woman's progress. Sara met the woman's dark eyes with a slightly hiked eyebrow in question.

"Ta-er al-Sahfer, I have been confined for quite some time, how about you provide me with information as we stretch? If you have an extra blade and have maintained your prowess," she paused with a wink, "I would like to remind my body what freedom of movement feels like in a brief sparring session. Do you have a place for that on your ship?" she asked.

Sara routinely put herself through challenging sword drills, but was only able to safely go half-speed with her teammates after the departure of Kendra and Carter. She felt a wave of anticipation and a stirring darkness wash over her at the thought of fighting against her mentor. Sara unconsciously squared her shoulders and lifted her head, her sword hand clenched and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. "Oh, absolutely," she said with confidence, "follow me."

As the Captain trotted down the stairs and turned to the hallway that would lead to the Cargo Bay, Zari keyed the comms unit that would connect her to Nate and Amaya. "Hey, guys, they're back, and you're gonna want to get her with a quickness," she said with sense of urgency, timeline be damned. A moment later, Nate replied, "Okay, yeah, we're fired up and about to take off. What's up? Everything okay?"

"Sara and Nyssa al Ghul are about to sword fight. I mean, spar, but with swords. You've gotta get back here! Oh, and we'll probably do some mission planning after." Zari dropped the comms unit and trotted out of the room, followed eagerly by Ray and a rambling Mick. In the background, as they moved down the hallway, they could vaguely hear Nate's reply, "Tell them to wait for us! A, we gotta hurry!"

Sara had taken Nyssa to her weapon collection and watched knowingly as she chose a slightly curved katana with a hand-carved bamboo hilt wrapped with thin red leather strips in a traditional diamond pattern. Sara remembered lifting the blade from Ras' personal collection on her most recent mission to Nanda Parbat and wondered if Nyssa recognized the blade. Sara continued her explanation of the situation as she ran through some warmup movements with her own preferred blade, "So, without getting too lost in the details, by Gideon being in the hands of Norah Darhk, the daughter of the man who killed my sister by the way, and Talia, they have access to all kinds of technology and information."

"Plus, they change the historical timeline enough that this evil creature, Mallus, will probably be released and we're not entirely sure yet what the creature's deal is, but it's going to be bad. He's had some of the worst people and creatures in history doing his bidding to try to break the timeline enough to allow his return. So, we're fairly certain it would be less than ideal if he was released and we couldn't stop him." Sara took a deep breath and waited for Nyssa to process the information as the dark-haired woman shed the V-neck top of her jumpsuit.

Nyssa slowly started her own warmup drills, now barefoot and in the white tank top and gray pants of her detention uniform. "Okay, Beloved. I can locate Nanda Parbat and help rescue your Gideon, but what else do you need me to do?" Sara was a little surprised at the lack of questions, hesitation, or really any signs of concern. She had almost forgotten how quickly Nyssa was able to adapt to new challenges or the threat of seemingly impossible odds. The dark-haired woman's confidence was contagious, and Sara remembered how easy it was to become addicted to the feeling of invincibility that almost bled off the powerful woman like a physical force.

Ray, Mick, and Zari entered the training area of the cargo bay and each found a storage container to sit on. "Start thinking about where they'd keep Gideon and some ideas on how we can sneak in and get her back. We don't have the manpower for a full out war with the League, and I don't want to sacrifice any of my guys. If it comes to that, I'll just trade myself for Gideon. That being said, if you can help us use some of the secret tunnels into the Nanda Parbat stronghold, maybe we can do it without me ending up in the hands of Talia al Ghul and Norah Darkh. Gah, that would be my least favorite threesome." Mick gruffly laughed as he cracked a beer.

As the two women began to circle one another, Nate trotted through the room and Amaya followed more calmly a few moments later. Sara paused, unsurprised at their quick return, and offered brief introductions as the two found a seat, "Nate, Amaya, this is Nyssa Raatko, she'll be helping us out with our little adventure to save Gideon." Nate greeted the woman and lightly hit the large man's shoulder he sat next to as he whispered, "Hey, give me a beer," and mouthed _What the fuck_ as Mick turned to deliver.

Sara preferred a slightly shorter katana blade and stood ready with her sword held in a reverse grip, the blade running down the length of her forearm, on account of the tight quarters and her quicksilver style of fighting. With the majority of opponents she faced, her compact strength, superior speed, and well-honed technique provided a clear advantage. However, as she took in the lean and sinewy musculature of her mentor, driven by the focused gaze, confident smirk, and decades of experience, she felt the thrill of facing off against one of the most flawless assassins in history. Which brought her mind back to how Nyssa became that way.

"Nyssa, why'd you start going by Raatko? Why's Talia involved in all of this?" The two women went into a casual strike, block, parry routine they'd performed together a hundred times to settle into the rhythm of the weapons. "I mean, I know she's never really liked me, but I never thought she hated me either. Is it some revenge thing?" Sara met the woman's blade above her head, absorbing the impact in her strong thighs, and pushed off into a reverse move to have her blade deflected with seemingly little thought on the assassin's part.

"As you know, Talia departed the League when she thought father favored me as the Heir to the Demon, even though she's the eldest." Nyssa tried a leg sweep and presented the hint of a smile as her counterpart deftly jumped onto one of the storage containers and returned with a downstroke. She could feel the competitive nature of the blonde woman begin to stir, her clear blue eyes taking on a grayish hue. Sara casually flipped off the container and squared her stance against the taller woman once more, knowing the pause would allow her to present more information. "While Talia was gone, she formed a secret society. Her lifelong mentor, one of my father's closest advisors, remained loyal to Talia. When I began to show disagreement with my father, Zahid spun it as disloyalty." Sara knew she was the start of the 'disagreement' between Talia and her father, though the conflict between Ras and Nyssa had grown significantly prior to his death.

The story paused as Nyssa saw the blonde woman's shoulder drop slightly, a tell for a complex pass that only her mentor would recognize. The assassin set her back foot and pushed off as she deflected the first strike at her shoulder, letting the blade slide off her own and using the blonde woman's momentum to spin past her. She countered as she moved beyond Sara's position, the compact form instinctively ducking under the stroke and returning with a move that was aimed at the taller woman's knees. The low and complex angle would work on most opponents, but Nyssa stopped the strike with her blade, a move that only years of wrist-strengthening exercises would allow without shattering the bones.

Sara felt the reverberation move up her arms and with both the feeling and sound of the blades impact, she felt the fire awaken inside her. She used her crouched position to her advantage and as the assassin quickly shifted for an offensive attack, the blonde form exploded upward, momentarily landed on a container, and flipped to land behind the taller woman. She felt the advantage and moved to strike the exposed shoulder blades with the flat of her blade only to have it met by a blind block as Nyssa's sword was suddenly over her head and down the length of her back. Sara was glad the taller woman couldn't see her look of surprise at the almost inhuman speed the block required, but knew Nyssa must have known as she kicked behind her in a move the blonde woman should have easily avoided.

Instead, the air dispelled in a whoosh and the dark-haired woman lazily spun her weapon in a figure eight as she turned and allowed Sara a moment to catch her breath and reset. "Zahid began re-aligning my father with Talia, and the two began to communicate secretly. Then, I disobeyed my father's orders," Nyssa watched as the understanding appeared in Sara's eyes and the blonde woman straightened to rest her sword on her shoulder, her other hand on her hip, as her mentor continued.

"It was taken as a sign of weakness by my father when I gathered those loyal to me to assist you and the Green Arrow. The two began to plot ways to take the League on a darker path, an overreaction to learning of those loyal to me and my delicate alliance with Oliver Queen. Then, my father was killed, you came back, and I destroyed the Lazarus Pit. Many in the League did not understand and felt the pit was their right. When I disappeared into the custody of the Time Bureau, Talia returned with her secret society members and seized control of the League." Nyssa mindlessly moved her blade through a series of complex maneuvers as she continued her story.

Now that it was being laid out in front of her, Sara wondered why Ava waited so long to capture Nyssa if she saved the girl not long after learning of Sara's death. She made a note to ask her partner, assuming she had a chance and the woman still spoke to her. _Either way, I think it's a key piece to this situation_.

"I think, Ta-er al-Sahfer, that Talia saw an opportunity to draw me out. I was involved in a conflict with some of her men the last time the Time Bureau agents re-captured me, but that was over two months ago. Perhaps she knew that you would free me from the Time Bureau prison and require my assistance to locate Nanda Parbat. An opportunity to remove me as a threat and root out those in Nanda Parbat still loyal to me." Sara immediately knew that Nyssa was right. It was revenge on Nyssa that Talia was after. _Shit. Shit. Shit._ She took a deep breath as she realized just how convoluted this situation was becoming. To keep her brain from melting, she reset her position and waited for Nyssa to do the same.

This time, there was a crackle of energy between the two women. Nyssa felt the shift and saw the still tension across Sara's shoulders, her eyes begging for Nyssa's help to free her mind from the tangle of information so she could gain perspective on the situation. The dark-haired woman recalled that their most vigorous sparring sessions were always immediately after Sara had accepted an almost impossible mission. Now, as she took in the compact form, low to the ground in an unwavering lunge, her off-hand extended forward and her blade back and close to her body, she cleared her own mind and catered to the blonde woman's will.

Sara watched as Nyssa briefly closed her eyes and erased the past from her mind. When they opened, the deep brown eyes were filled with a competitive fire that made Sara's heart pump harder, and a wash of anticipation flooded her skin. If either of the two women had looked around, they would have seen the tension feed into the team that surrounded them. Zari, cross-legged on top of a container, leaned forward, her hands in fists on either knee. Mick quickly killed the beer in his hand and quietly set the empty can behind him so as to not break the trance. Nate tucked his arm into Amaya's and leaned in to her lithe frame. Ray sat with perfect posture, afraid to move, even to scratch the itch he felt developing on his nose.

As if by unspoken consent, the two women burst into action as Sara thrust herself forward, her blade coming across Nyssa's midsection only to be quickly deflected and redirected down. Sara went with the movement and tucked into a roll, spinning to block the downward stroke from the taller woman. She let the blade slide off her own, the rasp of steel loud in the metal-framed room. Sara surged to her feet and caught Nyssa's blade coming across her body. The blonde used the position to slide into the woman's guard and elbowed her across the face.

The adrenaline allowed Nyssa to take the impact, moving in the direction of the blow to reduce the force of the strike, though she felt a trickle of blood escape her split lip. She brought both elbows up to catch Sara's reverse strike on her blade, feeling the tension across her shoulders as she pushed off the woman's attack. Nyssa brought her sword up and around for a cross-body attack she knew her counterpart would easily avoid. Instead of following through, as she saw Sara begin to jump backwards, Nyssa stopped her momentum in a true testament to her core strength and reversed the attack.

Sara only just planted her feet and deflected the strike enough that she felt the air pass across her stomach, but no pain followed. She laughed as she briefly looked down to see that her skin was now visible through the slice in her black tank top. She snapped her head back up and watched as the dark-haired woman used the momentum of her swing to continue around in a leg sweep. Sara flipped over the attempt and kicked backwards as she landed, striking the dark-haired woman in the stomach.

Nyssa knew the movement was coming and tightened her well-formed abs, moving back a small hop with the impact as she smacked the woman's leg toward the ground. As Sara struggled to re-gain her balance, knowing she was caught with her weight forward, Nyssa side-stepped the blonde's position and struck her with the flat of her blade across her shoulder-blades.

Sara felt the sting across her back, but blocked out the pain as she moved with the motion and brought her blade around to the dark-woman's shoulder. Nyssa caught the blonde's blade with her own, her elbows up, her blade down and angled across her body. Sara's reverse-grip brought her body close to Nyssa's with the maneuver, her own blade down the length of her forearm, and she leaned into the position. "You're a dick for that one," she said with the wink of a blue eye turned gray with excitement.

"Oh, Beloved, I know it has been awhile, but I assure you that I remain free of that particular appendage," Nyssa responded with a sultry growl. Sara heard a snap come from Nate's area and rolled her eyes as she lifted her elbow and let her blade slide down Nyssa's own, ducking as the released pressure forced the taller woman's sword over her head. She moved past the woman with sinewy grace and turned, remaining low to the ground.

Sara began her next assault, and a number of things happened at once. As she lunged forward for a cross-body strike, she heard her name bellowed from a distinctly familiar voice somewhere on the ship which distracted her just enough to hesitate as she spun to block the attack she knew was coming across her body. Suddenly, she felt a searing pain from shoulder to bicep on her left arm and dropped to a knee with an enunciated "Fuck!"

Zari and Ray were the first to hop from their containers, though their Captain quickly regained her feet and waved off everyone's attentions. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Shit, that was stupid. Sorry, Nyssa," she apologized to the taller woman who gently removed the blonde woman's hand from the slice across her arm. "Beloved, I apologize. Who is that calling your name?"

Sara looked in Nate's direction, who stood concerned and side-by-side with Amaya. "Hey, Nate, would you please go and get her, and meet us in the med bay? Don't tell her anything yet." The man nodded and moved toward the bridge.

Sara returned her gaze to Nyssa, "Hey, feel like giving me some stitches like old times? Usually our med bay is state-of-the-art and automated, but with Gideon gone, we'll have to go old school. Oh, and that was Time Bureau Director Ava Sharpe." Sara met Nyssa's confused gaze and saw the masked betrayal behind the dark eyes. She turned to her remaining teammates, "Hey, would you guys give us a second? Ray, would you mind getting things out and set in the med bay, please?"

Sara removed her top and wrapped it around the freely bleeding four-inch gash down her arm while the rest of the team headed out. She figured it would be better if her already furious partner didn't also see the slash in the front of the tank top. She moved a step closer to Nyssa and rested her hand on the woman's hip while she put pressure on the cut with her other hand. "Listen, I need you to know that I had no idea you were detained. I learned about it yesterday and broke you out this morning, and that would have happened whether I needed your help or not." Sara knew she owed Nyssa more of an explanation than that, but also realized having her partner burst into the Cargo Bay with her topless and bleeding with her ex-girlfriend wouldn't help the situation any.

Sara held the taller woman's gaze, trying to project as much emotion into her eyes as she could. She focused the pain in her arm and the weight of their history into the look, and knew Nyssa could feel the slight tremor in her fingertips at her hip. After a few seconds, the dark-haired woman nodded. "Okay, Beloved, I will trust you as I always have." Sara patted the woman's hip, let out a held breath, and hoped it would be enough for Nyssa to allow her to explain when the nature of her relationship with Ava was exposed. _No time for that now,_ she thought as Sara led the way with a quick pace a few doors down the hall and into the large medical facility on the ship.

Sara entered the Med Bay and stopped short as she met the eyes of her clearly livid partner. The space was filled with monitors, medical supplies, and two examination tables, and there was Ava Sharpe. The fit blonde woman stood arms crossed at her chest and legs crossed at the ankle as she leaned against the table furthest from the door. "Where the fuck is she, Sara?" the Time Bureau Director questioned in a smooth voice, tension thrumming in every line of her body.

Sara didn't have time to respond as Nyssa entered behind her and hesitated for a split-second, more like a stutter in her step, before she darted around Sara to meet Ava's lunging form. Nyssa quickly broke Ava's grip with a pressure point that allowed her to pull the blonde's right arm behind her, only to be struck by a well-delivered elbow to her head from Ava's free arm. Nyssa increased her pressure on the arm she had trapped and narrowly missed having her nose broken from a head butt. The conflict only lasted a matter of seconds before Sara intervened with a deep-chested shout. "Enough! Tawaquf!" Both women, and Ray who was en route to interfere, froze.

Nyssa immediately responded to the League's 'stop' command and dropped the woman's arm, her breathing calm and unaffected by the conflict, but her eyes moved restlessly between Sara and Ava. "I said I would trust you, Beloved, but I will not return as this woman's captive," Nyssa stated, noting the surprise in the dark blue eyes now a good distance away as the dark-haired woman returned to Sara's side.

Ava responded with an incredulous shake of the head, as if trying to remove the word from her memory. "Beloved?! Whatever." She stood with her hands on her hips and met the crystal-clear blue eyes of the woman she thought was her partner. "Captain Lance, as the Director of the Time Bureau, I insist that you return Nyssa al Ghul to my custody to avoid a catastrophic future in 2213," she said with a pointed look, knowing the significance of the year in question was not lost on the Captain by the brief flinch. "The event is so large that it takes approximately six more months for the timeline to solidify. Until that time, Ms. al Ghul will remain in the Time Bureau's custody as she clearly can not be trusted to refrain from interfering."

Sara compartmentalized the coldness coming off of her partner. _No time to deal with the emotional,_ she thought practically, and found it a bit easier to do so with the woman who taught her that lesson so close. "Listen, if you have six months, then you can afford to let her help us with this mission. I broke her out fair and square, and you can punish me for that however you see fit to save face with the Time Bureau. But, we both know that we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting Gideon back without her help," Sara paused to read Ava's body language, the quick mind clearly looking for other options.

Sadly, it was almost second nature to accept Sara's betrayal of the Time Bureau at this point. The Waverider's Captain was going to do what she had to do no matter who tried to stop her. _Hell, she's gone against a Nazi army._ Ava took in the unwavering look in the blue eyes and knew she didn't have much choice. "Look. She needs to guarantee that she will Not save the life of the target while she is free. I'll be watching and if there is even a hint of a side mission to do so, I'll immediately take her into custody. Because we don't know for sure what the loss of Gideon will do to the timeline, but there is absolute proof of what saving the target's life does."

Nyssa held her hand up to stall Sara's response, "This is not a target we speak of, this is a child. You can not ask me to refrain when I can right this one wrong and save her life," she replied forcefully. "Ta-er al-Sahfer, you do not understand," she implored the blonde by her side.

Ava, annoyed by the apparent pet names and gravity of the situation, "No! You don't understand! If you had any idea…!" Sara quickly interrupted the escalating situation as she put her hand on Ava's chest to stop her movement. As Ava pushed Sara's arm down, she noticed the shirt wrapped bicep that failed to stop a trickle of blood from escaping down to the shorter woman's wrist. "Sara, what happened to your arm?"

"It's nothing, just a scratch." She blew off the concern. Sara knew she could convince her ex-lover to hold off just for the duration of the mission if given the chance, and also had very little intention of allowing the girl to remain dead in the long run. _But, that's a problem for another day because today is fucking booked._ She knew Ava wouldn't let Nyssa out of her sight at this point, and didn't love the message it would send to her partner if she whisked Nyssa away to speak to her in private. Left with one option, she continued the conversation in Arabic, knowing Zari would be the only extra person able to understand, Sara was confident that the hacker wouldn't reveal anything she heard.

" _Nyssa, I understand wanting to save the girl, really, I do. But, is she really more important than the apparent catastrophe her life will bring?"_ Sara asked, her eyes pleading to be convinced that this fight was worth the risk. The Captain heard a mumbled 'Oh, what the hell' from the Time Bureau Director and was a little surprised that the protest stopped there.

The assassin's dark eyes took on a look of brevity as she grasped Sara's forearm. _"Ta'er al-Sahfer, in this I ask you to trust me in return. The girl's life is of the utmost importance. The dying words of her grandfather, the man who was my target, informed me that she had been sent to the past by her mother to protect her. He begged of me a blood oath to save her. I granted his final request."_

Overwhelmed by the increased complexity, Sara abruptly removed her arm from the assassin's strong hand and turned away, clearly frustrated and confused. The blonde woman knew there was no turning back once her former lover placed a blood oath. The situation was definitely spiraling and Sara suddenly resented both her former and current lovers that she found herself stuck between a rock and a hard place. _"Nyssa, what the fuck are you doing giving a blood oath to a man that was a target?! To a man you were sent to kill, and likely for good reason?"_ Sara threw both hands in the air as she spun back to face the dark-haired woman. With the motion, her poorly covered wound was exposed as the tank top fell to the ground. The separated flesh made Ava gasp and she moved toward her partner.

"Sara! This is not nothing?! Seriously, what in the hell happened?!" Sara glanced at the wound, having almost forgotten how bad it actually was, and turned her attention back to Nyssa, refusing to give her partner any further ammunition against her former lover.

Ava looked around and accepted a large gauze pad being offered by Ray and pressed it against the length of the open cut that now freely bled down the blonde woman's arm. Temporarily distracted by repairing the damage to Sara's flesh, she gently forced the compact frame to the examination table and made her sit. As Ava gathered the medical supplies, she let the foreign words roll over her, knowing her comms device was actively recording the interaction and she could have it translated back at the Bureau.

Nyssa's skin crawled slightly as she watched her captor care for her former lover with such an air of familiarity. _"Sara, I have asked that you trust me. The man's request was not invalid and I plan to stand by my blood oath. I will help you with this mission, but upon its completion, if it is within my vast capabilities, I will save that girl."_ Nyssa took in the pained and frustrated, yet determined look in the tight lips and slightly closed blue eyes across from her. She noted the slight nod as the blonde woman acquiesced. _"Beloved, I will have you know that the girl's name is Eleanor."_ Shock and understanding dawned over Sara as she immediately felt as though she was punched in the stomach. Nyssa turned and left the room and Ava continued to place careful stitches along the length of the cut.


	9. The Gideon Factor Part Nine

**The Gideon Factor**

Part Nine

Ava covered the stitched wound with antiseptic and wrapped the arm with a long, cloth bandage she was able to find in one of the cabinets in the medical bay. She focused on finding the emotions that were relevant and tried her best to breathe through the blind jealousy that she knew would be toxic. Images of the familiarity between the reformed assassin and the former Heir to the Demon, _who is a goddamn knockout,_ didn't help the situation, but she focused on finishing the task and not rushing the conversation. As she secured the end of the bandage, she watched as the blonde on the table took a deep breath and raised her head to meet Ava's eyes.

Sara knew she was going to have to face her partner and have a genuine and direct conversation about both her past and emotions. Even thinking about it made her want to run, especially with the warped situation she now found herself in. As she met the deep blue eyes, she tried her best to express everything she was feeling – fear about Gideon, regret that she'd had to betray Director Sharpe again, the conflict and reappearance of Nyssa, the trust she knew she was demanding from both Nyssa and Ava, the upcoming and inevitable conflict with Mallus, the presence of a child named Eleanor. Sara found herself almost laughing as she realized that if she really could send all of those emotions with her eyes, she'd probably be shooting the poor woman with lasers.

Instead, she broke the gaze and felt the stitches tighten as she pulled Ava closer. She leaned her forehead against the taller woman's chest and loosely hooked her fingers in the beltloops of Ava's pants.

"Listen," she began softly as she tried to organize her thoughts. She sat back again and hooked her heels behind Ava's thighs, returning her eyes to the tense look on her lover's face. "Let me start by saying that I need you with me in this. I understand that I fucked you. Professionally speaking. I couldn't find another option and I have to get Gideon back." Sometimes, no response was a good response, so she took another deep breath and kept going.

"Obviously Nyssa and I have a history, but please understand that she's a necessary piece to this. I'm sure you're just going to have some recording of our conversation translated, so I'll tell you that while she's agreed to let the girl go for now, she's probably not going to let her go for good." Sara raised her hands in a defensive gesture as Ava stepped back and took a breath to argue. "I can't blame her for that, but I'd like to understand your side. I mean, you have to know that 2213 is an important timeline to protect for me too, right?" Sara tucked a renegade strand of hair behind Ava's ear and waited. She knew she couldn't let the girl die, not if Nyssa was right about who she was. But. She also knew that letting her girlfriend's timeline be zapped into the abyss wasn't an option either.

Ava took a step back and reached up to take her hair down. She rifled her fingers through the long, loose curls and used the gesture both to buy some time and to center herself. Since her clone history was still a pretty raw and unexplored concept to her, she was surprisingly torn between protecting that time and protecting the present that she'd grown incredibly fond of. It was hard to want to protect something that you hated so thoroughly. Something that had blown apart everything you thought you knew about yourself and forced you to redefine your identity from scratch. _Maybe letting Nyssa, and now Sara, protect a kid that has an actual childhood is worth more than a land of clones. If only it was just the clones that suffered._

Ava dug her nails into her palm and brought herself back to the woman she was falling in love with. _At least I know that's real._ "Okay. Look, I understand that you two have history, and it's apparently a lot more than was in your file or that you've told me about yet. I'm willing to postpone that portion of the conversation, but I reserve the right to ask five questions about it in the future and you have to answer them truthfully." At Sara's smirk and nod of agreement, Ava swung herself through the emotional to the life and death issues at hand. _I wonder if that's easier since I was made to do the latter with little consideration for the former…_

Ava slowly paced through the med bay as she explained the situation. "So this girl, Eleanor, grows up to be a biomedical engineer with a specialization in nanotechnology," at the surprised look on Sara's face, and an odd flicker of…something in her eyes, she explained. "Think of it like a futuristic medical-field version of Ray. But, at some point, and for some reason, she got in with a biomedical development group that had a… less than desirable reputation." At Sara's raised hand, she paused.

"Wait. What do you mean? Who were they? And there's no information as to why it happened?" Sara asked with some edge to her voice.

"Gideon, pull up information on Alassad Development Corp, 2210" Ave commanded. She quickly realized her mistake at the raised eyebrow and sardonic look on Sara's face. "Oh, right. Okay, well, without the details, let's just say that the Alassad Dev Corp sucks. And with a specialist in nanotech and biomedical engineering in their midst, they didn't get any better. Also, the tie to 2213 isn't a coincidence – they specialized in clone technology."

"Well, fuck." Sara said as her mind raced to identify the implications that could have. "So what happened?"

Ava stopped pacing and moved closer to Sara. She adjusted the bandage on her partner's arm and decided just to lay it out there. "The girl, well, a woman at that time, had been developing an upgraded program, really an implant of sorts, that would allow the clones to be controlled by a single entity. Like an override chip. Or maybe an update to a pre-existing override chip, I'm not sure."

The strain in the Director's voice hurt Sara's heart. The idea that she couldn't know if she had an override chip like that in her own head somewhere. The uncertainty that she could possibly lose control of her own thought or actions without warning. Even Sara found it hard to stomach, so she couldn't fathom how hard it must be for Ava to carry that around inside. She gripped her partner's hand and brought it to her lips as she locked eyes with the powerful woman standing next to her. She kept the long fingers interlaced with her own and said, "Look, if you're worried about that, we can have Gideon do a scan on you as soon as we get her back."

Ava brushed the fear out of her eyes with the back of her free hand and nodded. She found that she couldn't quite bring herself to tell her partner the whole truth. _If she knew, she'd never stick around._ In that moment, she decided to stick with the pertinent facts of the story itself. She'd save the rest of the conversation for another day.

"As shitty as that is, it's not the direct cause of the catastrophe. This is where it gets unclear as to the role that the woman plays in the situation, though we know for certain that Nyssa's actions in killing the girl avoids the catastrophe. Historically, she'd been affiliated with humanitarian scientific developments. So when she was credited with releasing the chip 'upgrade'," Ava used her free hand to make air quotes, "under the Alassad Dev Corp umbrella and it malfunctioned after a full release, there was wide speculation that she either knew there was an error in the technology, maybe set on a time delay, or she planted a virus of sorts in the technology that she could trigger. Maybe as a hidden failsafe she could control."

Sara had started to slowly mimic rolling her father's coin across her knuckles, the deft fingers in a loose fist as each knuckle rubbed its neighbor. She took a moment to process the information and briefly wondered if Nyssa had any additional information. _Maybe the grandfather told her something before he died. Something more than just making her swear a blood oath to protect the girl before she killed him._

Sara slowly nodded, "Okay, so since her initial affiliation with the company was suspect to begin with, it would make sense if she built something in that gave her ultimate control." Ava shrugged and nodded in return. "Alright, so what was the malfunction? If I remember correctly, 2213 Vancouver had a large number of clones, but they weren't the entire population. What went wrong with the clones that caused a catastrophic event?" Sara asked, trying to be sensitive of the emotional minefield she was operating in.

Ava took her hand back and turned away from her partner. She lowered her eyes to the ground and fought back the tears that threatened to unsteady her voice as she answered. _Why in the hell do I feel responsible for them?_ "The clones started a war, or were made to start a war, against the citizens. The theory is that she had to wait until all of the clones were processed before the virus could be activated. Once they were, a select few of the clones destroyed the clone technology and the corporation. Then, every one of the clones killed themselves. But, it wasn't before hundreds of citizens were murdered. Also, some of the clones from the final release were armed with suitcase nuclear weapons. As if that wasn't bad enough, what Eleanor likely didn't know was that the explosives were tied in to the chip. When the chip was zapped, or triggered, or whatever by the virus, the bombs exploded. Sara…thousands of people died…I can't…I can't let any of that happen. No matter what." The implication was clear – she was going to stop the girl.

Ava looked over her shoulder with such self-loathing deep in her eyes. Sara immediately hopped off the table and went to her like a magnet to an opposing force. She put one hand on her partner's waist and gently guided the taller woman's face around to look into her eyes. Sara wanted to cry, kill, and vomit at the same time as the anguished eyes showed the crushed spirit of this strong, confident woman. "Babe, that fucking sucks. There's no other way to put it. Thankfully, we have some time to come up with a plan. It's not too late. Between you and me and the team…We can do this. That isn't your fate and that isn't the fate of those clones or that girl."

Ava always had a hard time understanding the force of Sara Lance's will. Sometimes, when the compact blonde woman spoke with such conviction, it was like you could already feel the fate of the world changing around you. It was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. She still felt scared, of course she did, but for some reason, looking down into the set jaw and crystal blue eyes of this dynamic woman, she was able to see past the fear and start processing the problem. Sara's will was like a hard reset and suddenly you were able to function normally again. It was amazing.

The taller woman leaned down and kissed Sara. She let the raw emotion pass through her lips. Ava pulled the Captain's compact form tightly against her own. She could feel the muscles flex in her partner's lower back as Sara reached up and used the Director's neck to suspend herself on her tiptoes. Sara parted her lips and met the emotion with a passionate belief that together they could change the future. It was one of those kisses that really felt like something serious could be built on the emotion that it carried.

Not that Sara needed the reminder to know how she felt about Director Sharpe, but they spent enough time away from one another that she liked to really focus on banking the good ones. She kept the contact up until she felt her own breath shorten and started to feel the necessity to touch Ava's bare skin. She felt her fingertips crave the small of the taller woman's back, just below her tapered waist and directly between the woman's well-defined hips. Sara reluctantly pulled back with a final nip at the full bottom lip of her partner.

At Ava's sigh of frustration, Sara laughed gently. "It's important to me that you know how much I want you right now. Also, how much I believe in you." Sara held her partner's gaze and hoped the message sank in. She thought maybe it had when the corner of Ava's mouth turned up and the woman reset her broad shoulders.

The emotion Ava felt for the shorter woman really left her with little choice. She'd see how it played out and made a pact with herself to revisit her position after the Legends retrieved Gideon. "Okay, so I'm with you in this. Of course I'm with you. Even if that means I have to work with Nyssa for a time. I'll try my best not to attack her on sight again. Where do we start?"

It had taken Ava quite a lot of practice to be able to turn over mission control like that, and she was proud of herself that she felt almost comfortable with the concept of relinquishing the leadership role to the Waverider's Captain.

Sara grabbed her hand and started moving toward the door. "First, we find the team. Then, we make a plan to infiltrate Nanda Parbat. We get Gideon back. We kick Talia and Norah Darhk's asses. We find and retrieve the water totem. We figure out how they all fit together. We send Mollus back to hell. We take a nap. Then we figure out how to save both the girl and the future 2213. Should be a nice little weekend."

Ava couldn't help but laugh as the two women turned down the hallway toward the loud thumps followed by laughter they could hear on the bridge of the ship.

On the bridge, in the open space between the mission control station in the center and the semicircle of crew seating, three of which were currently occupied by Amaya, Nate, and Zari, Mick and Nyssa faced one another. Their arms were loosely hanging at their sides as Nyssa explained a finer point in Ninjutsu to her rapt audience.

"You must remember that the force of motion used by your enemy may be stolen and used against them if they are unaware. Therefore, it does not matter the size of your opponent," she indicated the brute strength obvious in Mick's much larger form, currently covered in a tank top and sweatpants, "because his strength will become my power if he does not protect himself properly." The obvious red marks on the large man's shoulder and arms indicated that he had likely not learned how to do that yet.

Zari leaned forward over her crossed legs paying rapt attention to the stance and movement of the assassin. Like all the women on the ship, she regularly faced opponents that were much larger than she was, and she was determined to learn how to defend herself better without the use of her totem. It was something she greatly admired about the Captain and she wasn't about to miss a lesson from the woman who taught Sara Lance how to kick ass.

Nyssa brought both hands up to waist height, but otherwise remained in a relaxed, almost lazy looking posture. With a gesture of her hand and a small, encouraging nod, Mick prepared himself to go after the dark-haired woman across from him once more. He feinted a punch from the left and took a quick step to the right as he threw a right hook. It was clear the man had been in any number of fights and likely had ample training as a boxer. His feet were much lighter and much faster than a man of his size had any right to be, and he'd stopped pulling his punches after the second time he was tossed on his ass. But as he threw the right hook, Nyssa smoothly shifted her weight along the same angle as the man's quickly moving arm. She slipped inside his reach, placed her foot inside his instep, her hip against his own and with the momentum of the punch, she turned, grabbed Mick's bicep, and easily flipped the large man over her shoulder and onto the ground.

The resounding thud was matched by Nate's outcry of "Oh, Snap! Bro!" and Zari's loud laughter as she pulled her knees into her chest and covered her mouth. Even Amaya couldn't help but laugh. For some reason, watching Mick get tossed just didn't get old.

As Nyssa reversed the grip on the man's arm to help him up, both Sara and Ava made their way across the bridge hand-in-hand. "Ha! A little Ninja 101, huh? Don't feel bad, Mick, she tossed me on my ass with that exact throw dozens of times before we got to the 'how to defend against losing momentum' portion of training," Sara sympathized.

"Captain, this shit is awesome!" Nate exclaimed. "It's like she's not even trying. So effing cool." Ava restrained a scoff and Sara gently squeezed her partner's hand in reassurance.

Sara released Ava's hand and moved closer to her team, patting Mick on the shoulder as she passed. Ava leaned back against the central console, arms crossed, and waited for her partner to get on with it - though it was nice to see the group's interactions. It reminded her that she could be a part of something outside of the Time Bureau. Especially now that some of the Legends seemed to have accepted her presence in their Captain's life. It had taken her awhile to understand that her drive to focus solely on work was likely part of her clone programming, and she was slowly making progress in diversifying her interests. Something about a work-life balance that she'd spent many nights researching and trying to comprehend. Coming up with new hobbies for the Time Bureau Director to try was one of Sara's favorite new activities.

"Ta'er al-Sahfer, it is unfortunate that you yourself have not yet taught your team these lessons," Nyssa gently scolded the blonde now standing across the open space from her.

Sara's eyes narrowed slightly, but she couldn't help but acknowledge the truth of the statement. "I tend to focus on honing my team's skills with their totems and running group drills instead of one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat. But you're right. Some of these lessons would be valuable." She looked around at her teammates and tilted her head in challenge, "though it means you all would have to be willing to actually work on combat skills outside of missions."

"Oh! Combat training, fun!" Ray said as he made his way across the floor carrying a tray of sandwiches he'd made. "It's not Gideon food, but I figure we all should eat something and I know you like sandwiches, Mick," he said as he placed the tray on the center console.

Mick grunted and said, "I'm in for the sandwiches, but I'm out for the extra work."

Both Amaya and Zari met her gaze and smiled. _Maybe I have been doing them a disservice by not passing on my knowledge._ Despite the fact that Sara had come to terms with most of her experiences as an assassin, she still had a deep-seated fear that the darkness she'd felt after being resurrected and after being possessed by Mollus and the Death Totem wasn't as far from the surface as she'd like. _If it's in a controlled environment though, surely I'll be fine keeping a handle on things. Maybe Nyssa will supervise a couple rounds just in case – at lease she'd be able to stop me from hurting my team again._

"Yeah, okay. I'll start doing hand-to-hand combat stuff with you guys if you want. I'm down." The Captain walked slowly back toward the center console and joined the group to grab her own sandwich. As she ate, she slowly wandered around the empty floor of the bridge. "First, we need a plan to get Gideon back. Nyssa, it's been a bit since I've spent a lot of time on Nanda Parbat. What can we expect to find?"

The assassin, now clad in loose, black cotton pants and a deep red, v-neck t-shirt, all clearly from Zari's closet, stood confident and still as the team looked to her for information. "First, Raymond, thank you." The man gently blushed and raised his sandwich triangle in response. "Ta'er al-Sahfer, I assume you have retained the map that is required?" At the blonde woman's nod, she continued. "Good. There are five pieces to the key that will unlock a device that contains an ever-shifting hologram of the location and time continuum by which we can locate Nanda Parbat. A tattoo that was placed on a girl who once lived there; a stone-carved key; the spoken words that answer an ancient riddle; the petals of a fresh Dahlia; and, of course, the device itself."

"Okay," Ava stepped up, "we can take the Time Bureau ship and easily get the petals of a Dahlia. I'm assuming it has to be from a Dahlia actually located in Nepal and not fabricated for it to work?" The assassin raised her eyebrows and smirked in the Captain's direction as she nodded in reply.

Sara smiled, "What can I say? I have a type. Smart, beautiful, and deadly," as she glanced between the two women. Her mind casually included John Constantine and Alex Danvers in that category. "Okay, what about the main device, the key, and the riddle?" The Captain asked as she noted the slightly confused look on Ray's face.

"Don't forget the tattoo. Where do we find some random girl with a tattoo who's…" he slowly trailed off as understanding dawned on him, "lived in Nanda Parbat…" Nate reached over and comfortingly patted him on the back. "Ah, right."

"Good one, Ray," Zari commented below her breath as they all watched the awkward eye contact between their Captain and the Time Bureau Director. Even in the brief tank top from earlier, a tattoo was nowhere to be found on the assassins relatively exposed form. After a brief moment, Sara simply shrugged. _Not like there's anything she can do to avoid that fiasco,_ Zari thought to herself.

Nyssa finally broke the moment and took the Captain's question, "Over the years, I have acquired the device and the stone key. They are both in a safe location at my hideout in Star City. I also believe I have solved the riddle, though perhaps your team's input will help determine if I am correct."

Nate jumped in, "I'm the bomb at ancient riddles!" and received a high five from Ray as Amaya and the rest of the team grinned at his enthusiasm.

"Okay, so it sounds like we have everything we need to unlock the map," Amaya said. "Sara mentioned something about possible secret passageways, traps, and guard positions. Are those unlocked with the map's key as well?" Nate couldn't help but wonder if the question was fueled by the Marauders Map from Harry Potter and rubbed his fingertips across Amaya's back in encouragement.

Nyssa shook her head, "Unfortunately, no. I don't know what changes Talia may have made, but I spent quite a bit of my childhood exploring the secret passageways of Nanda Parbat. There are a few that I believe no one will know but me – though I must warn you that they were likely forgotten because of the traps that were set. They are traps implanted by an ancient, evil mind and will be challenging to bypass."

Nyssa still had three vicious looking scars along the back of her left thigh from one of the traps. She could clearly remember having to drag an almost useless leg that dripped with blood out of the catacombs. She made her way back to her instructor and vividly recalled being made to stitch and bandage her own flesh. Perhaps if she'd had a steadier hand at the time, the scars would have faded. But what can you expect from a nine-year-old child?

His interest triggered, Mick chimed in between bites of his fifth or sixth sandwich triangle from his standard kicked-back position on the steps leading to the library, "Huh, old evil guy traps. Count me in."

"Boss, why can't we just jump into Nanda Parbat itself?" asked Nate. He figured it hadn't been the go-to for a reason, but was unable to put together why.

Nyssa fielded the question instead. "The reason is two-fold. First, because the shifting city is constantly moving through time and space. A ship such as this would be unable to identify the proper time-space alignment before the city shifted once more. Secondly, there is a cloaking or protection spell on the city that dispels technology. There is not a direct translation for this feat," she looked to Sara to confirm the verbiage and continued at the Captain's shrug and nod, "but your ship would become inoperational within five kilometers of Nanda Parbat. It is how the League has been able to hide from agencies that wish to locate us."

The intent of the comment was clear and Ava felt her hackles rise. "I guess it's a good thing you dip shits keep leaving then, yeah? If you'd all just stay in your hole, it would save everyone a lot of trouble."

Sara was intent on heading the impending argument off at the pass, and stepped in with a stern glance toward her partner, "Okay, so, we need to go and get the other pieces of the key. Nyssa, I imagine you have the ancient riddle memorized, yes? How about you write that down and let these brainiacs take a crack at it to verify your answer while we go to your hideout in Star City." Sara noted the look of disapproval on Ava's face at this, but rounded out the temporary plan. "I want everyone packed and ready when we get back – only bring essentials. We'll be rucking for over three miles and then facing possibly our biggest challenge yet – Talia's League guys won't be like the usual assholes we face. This crew is legit and they don't take prisoners. Nyssa, we'll head out in 15 minutes. Zari and Mick, meet us at the docking station in 10."

Sara made sure she received a response of understanding from each of her teammates and the assassin. No one deemed it necessary to point out that no actual plan of action was developed for when they reached Nanda Parbat. Between trusting their Captain to scrounge something up and being used to winging it in the most dangerous of circumstances, only Ava registered concern at the absence of a functional plan. _What in the hell is going on? And I'm supposed to just trust her to trot off to Star City with Nyssa al Ghul? Shit._ Though it gave the Director comfort to know that at least the Time Bureau had the location of Nyssa's safe house. She made a note to contact Gary to set up surveillance of the small, downtown loft.

Mick headed back toward the Kitchen, probably to see if any sandwiches were left, while Nate, Ray, Zari, Amaya, and Nyssa all headed off to the Parlour to discuss the riddle needed to unlock the key. Sara knew Ava had some doubts about the way things were going so far, and though she wished she was a little better at hiding those doubts in front of the team, she recognized that the woman likely wasn't wrong to have them. Sara prepared herself to answer the kinds of questions her partner's detail-oriented mind produced, and to calm any emotional issues that may arise during this next little step in the process.

It had taken the Captain a few missed opportunities before she'd realized that having the discussions with Ava before Sara was in a position that made her partner uncomfortable was much easier and more efficient than dealing with the fallout of those situations. For example, the John Constantine thing could have been handled better, but it was difficult for Sara to make herself voluntarily talk about delicate emotional issues. Really, she could only do it now without fleeing based on sheer necessity and the fact that she'd grown to genuinely care about Ava's day-to-day happiness. With the baggage she brought along as a reformed assassin, it was hard not to feel like she

Plus, so far Ava hadn't ever grossly overreacted, and that was the kind of encouragement Sara needed to face emotional discussions. _Especially ones that involve me and my ex-lover pretty much going to her place._ _Yeah, her body posture is not radiating confidence_ , she thought as she took in the form of the Time Bureau Director, still leaned back against the central console, arms crossed, and a grim look across her face.

"Sara, you know this is a half-assed plan, right? I don't need to point out the holes? And you know there are going to be League members watching her place. Is going with just the two of you really the best idea? Why not take some of your team? Or even some Time Bureau guys? I have some that would know how to keep their mouths shut about Nyssa. Hell, at this point Gary talks and acts like he's an honorary Legend anyway."

Offering some of her agents to assist, knowing it would expose the Director to the temporary cover-up she was surely going to orchestrate to hide the disappearance of Nyssa, touched Sara in a deep place. Ava had spent literally her whole memorable life building her reputation and career at the Time Bureau. _For her to risk that for me so casually…_ Sara moved to her partner and leaned on the console next to her. As both women took in the swirling green of the Temporal Zone outside the large windows of the Waverider, Ava reached down to take Sara's hand. Sara squeezed the fingers now intertwined with her own and looked over to take in the high cheekbones and bunched muscles of her partner's jaw.

"Hey," Sara started and waited for Ava to look at her, the restraint, frustration, and stress evident in the dark-blue eyes. "I know it's going to drive you crazy, but we're not going to be able to plan this mission with the level of detail you'd like. A lot of it depends on Nyssa. Even that will be limited by what Talia has changed since her return and the influence of Nora Darhk. This is what my team does, and even I'm a little nervous because I know how lethal the League of Assassins are even without the influence of a Mollus-possessed Darhk. My guys will come thru, but they don't have the same darkness and edge that Nyssa and I have."

Every argument Ava could have made immediately died on her lips as she knew the truth of the statement. She knew that disagreeing with the former assassin would only make her seem disillusioned to her partner, and accepting her lover's dark history was something she'd been working toward being more honest with herself about. Sara had been a killer. That kind of a past leaves a mark.

Sara saw the hesitation, but continued on without giving Ava a chance to delve into the regular disagreement the two women had about the status of Sara's soul. "I mean, maybe Mick does and I catch glimpses of it in Zari, but overall, my team is a bunch of thru-and-thru good guys. The entire Time Bureau is made up of good guys. I can't in good conscience put those kinds of intrinsically good people up against the League until it's absolutely necessary. So, yeah, I'm going to go with Nyssa in the jump ship and have Zari and Mick quarterback us from the Time Bureau ship. I get that it doesn't look great from your perspective, and I'm sorry about that, but I trust Nyssa, and I need you to trust me." Sara held her breath while she waited for the taller woman to respond.

Ava brought the hand she had firmly clasped in her own up to her lips and kissed Sara's scarred knuckles. She forced the mistrust she held for Nyssa al Ghul into a compartment in her mind and put her faith in her partner. "I said I was with you and I meant it. I trust you. But don't hesitate for a second to call if you need backup in Star City. You know better than anyone and said so yourself, the League is nothing to take lightly. I'll come myself if I have to."

Sara turned to face her partner, relieved that Ava continued to support her. "Thank you. Seriously. If it helps you feel better, I have the logistics into Nanda Parbat planned out, but my team tends to glaze over if I give them too much information at once. We'll do a briefing session when I get back. Then, depending on what time it is in the where of Nanda Parbat, we'll hopefully have a few hours before we set out."

Sara leaned into the taller form of her partner. Ava threaded her fingers into the Captain's blonde hair and leaned down to meet Sara's waiting lips. She took her time kissing her partner, knowing that the trip to the assassin's hideout wasn't going to be as simple as it sounded in Sara's description. Nothing about the next couple days was going to be simple or easy, and Ava refused to take any moment she had with the Waverider's Captain for granted.

Ava gently tightened her grip in the shorter woman's hair and could feel her partner press her compact form tighter along the length of her body. As a soft moan escaped Sara's lips, it took them both a minute to remember that they were still against the central console of the Waverider. Ava let Sara's hands wander along the skin of her back, but regretfully pulled back when her fingertips started to slip under the waistband of her pants.

"Babe, uhm, we're in the middle of your ship," Ava said as she removed her hand from the back of Sara's neck and rubbed her uninjured arm. _Good God, she has nice arms._ Ava was momentarily pulled back into the constant contact by the almost gray hue of her partner's eyes and the nails that she could feel along her lower back.

"Exactly," Sara said as she nipped the taller woman's shoulder, " ." Ava softly laughed as Sara regretfully stepped back and loosely entwined the fingers of each hand with Ava's. "Shit. Fine. Okay. Look, I know we don't have the time to… get to the bottom of things right now," she said with a small smirk. "But, when Nyssa and I get back, I need you here to help assess the map and in case we have some time before we have to leave…I'd like to take a break from reality with you before my team heads out."

Ava's mind was already working to identify how she could best backstop Sara's team on their mission to retrieve Gideon. She'd have the location once the map was activated and knew there was an actual plan to be had in there somewhere. If there was a single aspect in her life that she was confident about, it was her ability to develop and execute even the most difficult of missions. It was literally what she was made to do. She smiled and nodded at her partner.

"Of course I'll be here. Right now, I'm going to head back to the office and conduct an 'investigation' into Nyssa's disappearance. Ping me when you get back?" She asked as she reluctantly released Sara's hands.

"Absolutely," Sara responded as she quickly leaned forward to steal a final kiss. Sara was horrible at vocalizing her feelings, but she hoped she was able to express her emotions for the woman in that brief moment.

Ava lightly brushed Sara's cheek with the back of her knuckles. She tried to memorize that look in the crystal blue eyes and the twitch of her partner's expressive face. Ava quickly smiled and winked in return. Ava moved toward the center of the room, keyed the watch-style device on her wrist, and walked through the portal that would take her back to her office at the Time Bureau.

After the portal closed, Sara ran her fingers through her hair and mentally prepared herself to relive a segment of her past. She closed her eyes as she could feel the darkness inside her awaken at the notion. The familiar feel of the life and death challenge stirred and the anticipation worked itself down the back of her neck where her partner's touch had been only moments before. Sara knew no one on her team or her partner would be able to understand what she was going through, and she had to take a deep breath before she admitted the truth to herself. She liked the feeling. And she liked that by going with Nyssa alone, she wouldn't have to hide that fact.

With that, Sara turned toward the hallway that would take her to the docking station, and simply hoped she wouldn't let herself slip too far.


End file.
